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ST. PAUL'S CONCEPTION 
OF CHRISTIANITY 






ST. PAUL'S CONCEPTION 
OF CHRISTIANITY 



BY 

ALEXANDER BALMAIN BRUCE D.D. 

PROFESSOR OF 
NEW TESTAMENT EXEGESIS IN THE FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW 

AUTHOR OF 

"THE KINGDOM OF GOD," "THE TRAINING OF THE TWELVE," 

ETC., ETC. 




NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. 

1894 



^ 






Copyright, 1894, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'8 SONS 



0- 



PREFATORY NOTE 



This book on St. PauVs Conception of Christianity is a 
companion volume to my work on The Kingdom of God, 
published five years ago. I have in view to issue a 
similar work on The Epistle to the Hebrews as soon as I 
can command the necessary leisure. 

The note at p. 184 on the book recently published 
by Professor Everett of Boston, entitled The Gospel of 
Paul, is the substance of a review which appeared in 
the pages of The Christian World. It is reproduced 
here by the kind permission of the publishers. 

A. B. BRUCE. 

Glasgow, 1st September 1894. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 



THE SOURCES 



Chief Sources — Epistles to Galatian, Corinthian, and Roman 

Churches .... 

These the controversial group 
Contain all the leading ideas of Paulinism 
Even of the Christological Epistles 
Was there a growth in St. Paul's theology ? 
A priori possible .... 
No proof of the fact 
Epistles to the Thessalonians no proof 
These the Primer-Epistles 
Analysis of their teaching 



2 
4 
4 
5 

6 

8 

9 

10 

15 

17 



CHAPTER II 



ST. PAUL'S RELIGIOUS HISTORY 



Important bearing on his theology 

Autobiographical hints 

Conversion of Saul of Tarsus 

Not so sudden as it seems 

Significance of the conversion 

Confirmatory notices in Galatians i. 

His universalism dates from his conversion 

Religious intuitions and theological formulations 

Apologetic elements the latest growth 



26 
27 
31 
32 
35 
37 
45 
46 
47 



Vlll 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER III 

THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 

Origin of the controversy with the Judaists 

Phases of the controversy . 

Epistle deals with first phase — perpetual obligation of the Law 

The earliest of the four 

Occasion of the writing 

Analysis of the Epistle 

Main body of the Epistle 

Postscript . 



PAGE 

49 
51 

52 
53 
55 
56 
59 
70 



CHAPTER IV 



THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 

Second phase of the controversy — attack on St. Paul's apos 

tolic standing ..... 
Little about it in the Eirst Epistle 
Yet leading points of St. Paul's apology indicated 
These worked out in the Second Epistle . 
First line of defence — He has seen the Lord 
Second line — The success of his work 
Third line — He has suffered in the cause 
Last four chapters ..... 

CHAPTER V 

THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS ITS AIM 

An occasional writing, not a theological treatise 

Deals with the last phase of the Judaistic controversy, the 

prerogative of Israel ..... 
Temper of the Judaists to be dealt with . 
Baur's view of the Epistle .... 

Who were the foe ? ..... 

Was the Roman Church mainly Jewish or mainly Gentile ? 
Influence of missionary plans .... 
And of the letter being addressed to Rome 



71 

72 
75 
75 
76 
79 
84 
85 



91 

93 

94 

97 

99 

102 

104 

105 



CHAPTER VI 

THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS — THE TRAIN OF THOUGHT 

Theme of the first eight chapters, salvation through faith . 107 

The sin- section ....... 108 

Gentile sins ....... 109 

Jewish sins . . Ill 



CONTENTS 



IX 



Paganism and Judaism both failures 

"A righteousness of God" 

Support to the doctrine 

The historical argument . 

The argument from experience 

The Adam-Christ section . 

Apologetic train of thought 

Triumphant conclusion 

The problem of the election (chapters ix.-xi.) 



PAGE 

112 
114 
115 
116 
117 
118 
119 
122 
123 



CHAPTER VII 



THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 

Embraces four particulars 

(1) General prevalence of sin 

(2) Connection with Adam 

Universal prevalence of death 
Imputation of Adam's sin 
Doctrine of the Talmud 

(3) Sinful proclivity of the flesh . 

Source of this proclivity 

(4) The Law's action on the flesh 



125 
125 
127 
128 
130 
134 
137 
141 
143 



CHAPTER Yin 



THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OP GOD 



A righteousness given to faith 
Essential significance of the doctrine 
Specific aspects of the doctrine 
Eunctions of faith 
Conflicting theological types 
What St. Paul meant to teach 
Justification and Christ's resurrection 
Theory of Mene'goz 



147 
147 
151 
152 
155 
157 
160 
161 



CHAPTER IX 



THE DEATH OF CHRIST 



Christ's doctrine and St. Paul's 
Pauline logia on the subject 

VKacTTripLOv . 

The principle of redemption 

Romans viii. 3 

Objective and subjective . 



165 
166 
167 
171 
172 
175 



CONTENTS 



Subjective identity- 
Vicar, Representative, Brother 
Professor Everett's theory 



PAGE 

178 

181 
184 



CHAPTER X 








ADOPTION 


No formal doctrine of the Fatherhood of God , . • . 188 


Sonship in the teaching of Christ and St. Paul 






189 


Adoption as St. Paul understood it 






190 


Objective aspect .... 






191 


The filial spirit . . 






192 


Privileges of the filial state 






193 


Liberty ..... 






194 


The Spirit of His Son . 






197 


Heirship ..... 






204 



CHAPTER XI 

WITHOUT AND WITHIN 

The Pauline apologetic, topics involved . 

Two aspects of his soteriology 

Connection between them, various theories 

True view of the matter . 

The mystic element in St. Paul, its source 

The faith-mysticism his own 

Subjective righteousness in Romans and Galatians 



207 
208 
209 
213 
216 
219 
221 



CHAPTER XII 

THE MORAL ENERGY OF FAITH 

Faith a guarantee for holiness .... 

Faith good for all purposes .... 

Faith energetic in all spheres of life 

"Faith alone " tested by religious history 

Faith establishing fellowship between the believer and Christ 

Weiss' view as to faith ..... 

Function of baptism ..... 

CHAPTER XIII 

THE HOLY SPIRIT 

Apologetic setting of the theme defended 
Holy Spirit in the primitive Church 
His influence chiefly charismatic . 



225 
227 
229 
230 
233 
235 
237 



242 
243 
245 



CONTENTS 



XI 



Charisms and grace divorced 

St. Paul's view of the Spirit's influence ethical . 

Transcendent action of the Spirit intermittent . 

Immanent action constant 

Acts through our rational powers and idea of Christ 

St. Paul did not neglect the history of Christ 



PAGE 

247 
248 
251 
253 
254 
256 



CHAPTER XIV 



THE FLESH AS A HINDRANCE TO HOLINESS 



" Body " and " Flesh " 

St. Paul experienced the hindrance 

What is meant by the " Flesh " ? 

Hellenistic theory . 

Not held by St. Paul 

Difficulties of Pauline anthropology 

An ethical dualism taught by the apostle 



263 
264 
267 
268 
269 
273 
276 



CHAPTER XV 

THE LIKENESS OF SINFUL FLESH 

Romans viii. 3 ...... 279 

Different views as to the meaning of . . . 280 

Does St. Paul decide the question as to Christ's flesh being the 

same as ours ? . . . . . . 283 

Theory of Atonement associated with doctrine of identity of 

Christ's flesh with ours ..... 286 

Criticism of the theory ...... 288 

Sacramentarianism involved in the theory . . . 290 



CHAPTER XVI 



THE LAW 

The Law in Galatians and Romans 

St. Paul's view of the Law .... 

Three questions as to St. Paul's view of the Law 
Is it in accordance with the view of the Law in the Old Testa 
ment ? ...... 

Are the functions St. Paul ascribes to the Law real ? 

Is St. Paul's view of the Law exhaustive ? 

St. Paul's view and that of the Epistle to the Hebrews compared 



293 
295 
295 

295 
302 
305 
307 



Xll 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER XVII 



THE ELECTION OF ISRAEL 

Third topic in the Pauline apologetic 

The problem dealt with in two ways (Bomans ix 

Hypothesis of a cancelled election 

Was the election really cancelled ? 

St. Paul's idea of election . 

Figurative expression of it . 

Relativity of biblical utterances 

Last word on the subject 

CHAPTER XVIII 



PAGE 
310 

311 
312 
317 
321 
322 
324 
325 



Why taken up at so advanced a stage 

Doctrine of Christ and doctrine of Redemption 

Redemption by self-humiliation 

Involves a step out of time into the Eternal 

Pre-existence 

Raises three questions 

Christ's relation to man 

Christ's relation to the universe 

Christ's relation to God 

Has St. Paul called Christ God ? 

CHAPTER XIX 

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 

Beginning of Christian life 

A new creation .... 

St. Paul's view compared with our Lord's 

Does St. Paul recognise the idea of growth ? 

Hints of it in earlier letters 

Result ..... 

Salient features of the Christian life 

Place of love .... 

CHAPTER XX 

THE CHURCH 

Church and Kingdom in Gospels and Pauline Epistles 

The Church idealised by St. Paul . 

Church fellowship ..... 

At first all on a level . 

Differentiation ensues 



327 
328 
329 
329 
330 
331 
331 
335 
336 
339 



344 

346 
349 
350 
353 
357 
358 
359 



362 
366 
368 
370 
371 



CONTENTS 



Xlll 



Rulers 

Teachers 

The Christian ministry 

A " learned ministry " 



PAGE 

371 
372 
373 
377 



CHAPTER XXI 



THE LAST THINGS 

Modern views and ancient contrasted 

Salvation eschatologically conceived 

St. Paul expected the irapov<ria soon 

Change of mind ...... 

Does St. Paul teach a universal resurrection ? 

Physical and ethical resurrection .... 

Mr. Matthew Arnold on St. Paul's idea of the resurrection 
Kabisch on the same ..... 

The resurrection body ..... 

Chiliasm ....... 

1 Corinthians xv. — its value religious not theological . 



379 

380 
381 
383 
385 
387 
388 
391 
392 
394 
395 



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE 



THE TEACHING OP ST. PAUL COMPARED WITH THE TEACHING OF OUR 
LORD IN THE SYNOPTICAL GOSPELS 



Summary of results 

Views of Dr. Wendt stated 

Chief point of contrast refers to Atonement 

The question raised vital 

Self-salvation and salvation by another 

Adjustment of Atonement to the natural order 

Faith in the teaching of our Lord and St. Paul 



397 
398 
400 
402 
403 
403 
404 



ST. PAUL'S CONCEPTION 
OF CHRISTIANITY 



CHAPTER I 

THE SOURCES 

Two important questions may be asked concerning St. 
Paul's Christian theology: Where did he get it? and, 
Whence do we obtain our knowledge of it ? It is with 
the latter of these questions that we are now to be 
occupied. By " sources " is here meant the literary 
materials available for becoming acquainted with the 
great Gentile apostle's characteristic way of thinking on 
the leading themes connected with the Christian faith. 

If we wanted to know, as far as is possible, all that 
St. Paul thought on any topic relating to the faith, we 
should have to regard all his extant Epistles as our 
sources, and our first task would be to ascertain to the 
best of our ability how many of the separate writings 
ascribed to him in the New Testament are authentic. 
If, on the other hand, our aim be, as it is, to determine the 
nature of the distinctively Pauline type of Christianity, 



Z ST. PAULS CONCEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 

to make ourselves acquainted with what St. Paul called 
his gospel, 1 or what, in modern phrase, we call Paulinism, 
it is really not necessary to do more than stud}?- care- 
fully four of the reputedly Pauline Epistles, those, viz., 
to the Galatian, Corinthian, and Roman churches respec- 
tively. This limitation of the field to be studied, while 
reducing the subject to manageable dimensions, may be 
justified by other considerations possessing more weight 
than can attach to reasons of personal convenience. 

Among these considerations a foremost place is due to 
the fact that the four Epistles referred to are generally 
recognised by biblical critics of all schools as indubitably 
genuine. 2 Apart altogether from personal convictions, 
even though one may have little or no doubt as to the 
authenticity of any one of the thirteen letters, 3 it is due 
to the actual state of critical opinion that in a scientific 
attempt to ascertain the nature of St. Paul's Christian 
teaching, primary importance should be attached to the 

1 Bom. xvi. 25. 

2 There is a school of critics possessing hardihood enough to call 
in question the genuineness of even these Epistles. Its best-known 
representative is Rudolf Steck, who has expounded his views in a 
work recently published on the Epistle to the Galatians (Der Gdlater- 
brief nach seiner Echtheit untersucht, 1888). The assumption which 
underlies his criticism is that the sharp opposition to Judaistic 
Christianity revealed in the Epistle did not really exist in St. Paul's 
time, but came much later, as the result of a gradual development 
which reached its culminating point about the time of Marcion. 
On this new criticism, which I cannot bring myself to take 
seriously, see some remarks of Lipsius in the introduction to his 
Commentary on Galatians, etc., in the Hand-Commentar zum Neuen 
Testament. This school of New Testament criticism corresponds in 
character to that of Vernes and Havet in the Old Testament, who 
make the prophets post-exilian. 

3 Of course the Epistle to the Hebrews is left out of account. 



THE SOURCES 3 

Epistles which command a general, if not quite universal, 
consensus of critical approval. Other Epistles may 
legitimately be cited by any writer on Paulinism who 
has no doubt as to their genuineness, but even in that 
case, if he is to pursue a strictly scientific method, only 
in the second place, and by way of parallels. It will be 
understood of course that in a homiletic use of Scripture 
this distinction between primary and secondary may be 
disregarded. 

The four Epistles in question have the advantage of 
being more or less controversial in their nature. This is, 
it must be owned, not advantageous in all respects. A 
polemical origin is in some ways prejudicial to the 
quality and value of a writing. Controversy readily 
leads to the placing of an undue emphasis on some 
aspects of truth to the neglect of others not in themselves 
unimportant. It involves an unwelcome descent from 
the serene region of intuition to the lower and stormier 
region of argumentation. The role of the prophet or seer 
is replaced by that of the theological doctor. On both 
accounts the quality of temporariness is apt, in some 
measure, to characterise all controversial writings. When 
the occasion is past the one-sidedness to which it gave 
rise ceases to satisfy. Arguments which told at the 
time when the controversy raged lose their cogency, 
though the truths they were employed to defend possess 
perennial importance. Yet, on the other hand, the 
literature of a great debate, which formed a crisis in the 
religious history of the world, must possess an exceptional 
and imperishable worth. The thoughts of men at such a 
time are clear, for they define themselves against those 



4 ST. PAULS CONCEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 

of opponents. We have a twofold clue to their mean- 
ing : their own words, and the views of those against 
whom they contend. Then the deepest thoughts of men's 
minds are brought to light at such a crisis. Conflict 
sets their hearts on fire, and stimulates to the uttermost 
their intellectual powers ; they say therefore what is 
dear to them as life, and they say all in the most 
energetic manner. 

These remarks have their full application to the four 
Epistles which we may conveniently distinguish as the 
controversial group among the Pauline writings. The 
issue involved is clear ; we have no difficulty in know- 
ing what were the views of those against whose evil 
influence the apostle sought to fortify the churches to 
which he wrote. In other Epistles, such as that to the 
Colossians, we can only guess what were the unwhole- 
some tendencies the writer desired to counteract. The 
issue is also vital. The controversy concerns nothing 
less than the nature and destination of Christianity. 
Here therefore, if anywhere, we may expect to learn 
what St. Paul deemed central and essential in the 
Christian faith ; to get to the very bottom of his mind 
and heart as a believer in Jesus, all the more that the 
foes he fights are not only the men of his own house, but 
the very impersonation of his former self. They advocate 
what he once held, they represent religious tendencies 
which formerly made him a determined enemy of 
Christianity, and a relentless persecutor of all who bore 
the Christian name. With what passion, yes and with 
what pathos, he must throw himself into such a quarrel ! 
We may expect to find in what he writes bearing thereon 



THE SOURCES 

not merely much fresh original thought trenchantly 
expressed, but here and there autobiographical hints, 
involuntary self -revelations, the man unveiled alongside 
of the theologian. It will be our own fault if in our 
hands these writings become dry scholastic productions. 

Even in reference to what is specific or peculiar in 
later Epistles, we may find a sufficient indication of St. 
Paul's view in the controversial group. So, for exam- 
ple, in the case of what are called the Prison Epistles, 
whose special characteristic is the prominence given to 
Christology, on which account they are sometimes distin- 
guished as the Christological group. 1 There is quite 
enough Christology in the four great controversial 
Epistles to show us what St. Paul thought concerning 
the great Object of the Christian's faith and reverence. 
The Christological Epistles contain interesting and 
valuable statements concerning the Lord Jesus which 
repay earnest study, but the Christ-idea of these Epistles 
embraces little, if anything, essential in advance of what 
can be gathered from the relative texts in the contro- 
versial Epistles. The person of Christ is more pro- 
minently the theme of the former as compared with the 
latter, but the doctrine taught is not pronouncedly 
higher, though it is applied in new directions. 

Besides these two groups of Epistles, there are other 
two containing respectively the earliest and the latest of 
St. Paul's reputed writings, preserved in the New Testa- 

1 This group includes the Epistles to the Ephesian, Philippian, and 
Colossian churches ; also the Epistle to Philemon, which, however, 
possesses no doctrinal significance. Of the Christological Epistles 
the authenticity of Philippians is least doubted, that of Ephesians 
most. 



b ST. PAULS CONCEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 

ment, the one consisting of the two Epistles to the church 
of Thessalonica, the other of the two to Timothy and the 
one to Titus, called from their leading subject-matter the 
Pastoral Epistles. Neither of these groups yields a 
contribution of importance to Paulinism, if we use that 
term to denote not what St. Paul wrote casually on any 
subject whatever connected with the Christian faith, but 
the distinctively Pauline system of thought on essential 
aspects of the faith. In the former are to be found no 
definite specific formulations of belief, but only general 
and elementary statements of truth ; while the latter, in 
so far as they refer to matters of faith, but repeat 
familiar Pauline ideas as commonplaces, their proper 
occasion and specialty being to supply directions with 
reference to ecclesiastical organisation. 

These four groups of letters, written at different times, 
the earliest separated from the latest by a period of some 
sixteen years, naturally suggest a question which may 
here be briefly touched on. Was there any growth in 
St. Paul's mind in relation to Christianity, or must we 
conceive of his system of Christian thought as the same 
at all stages of his history, poured out at the first in one 
gush, so to speak, and setting thereafter into an un- 
changeable rigid form? On this question opinion is 
greatly divided. Sabatier, e.g., earnestly contends for 
growth, and makes it his business to prove and exhibit 
it by analysis of the different groups of Epistles, begin- 
ning with the Epistles to the Thessalonians, called the 
mission group, and supposed to show the apostle's way of 
thinking before the great controversy arose, and passing 
in succession through the controversial and the Christo- 



I 



THE SOURCES 7 

logical groups to the pastoral. 1 Pfleiderer, on the other 
hand, inclines to the other alternative. 2 The difference 
between these two authors, however, does not consist in 
this that the one affirms and the other denies the 
existence of traces of advance, development, or modifica- 
tion of view within the range of the Epistles ascribed to 
St. Paul. The point of difference is that the one holds 
that the growth was in St. Paul's own views and teaching, 
and the other that the growth was not in St. Paul, but 
in Paulinism, that is in the conception of Christianity 
which took its origin from St. Paul, and in its main 
features was adopted by a section of the Church, and in 
the hands of his followers underwent expansion and 
modification. The facts founded on in the maintenance 
of the two rival hypotheses are much the same. They 
are such as these, that in the Epistle to the Colossians, 
for example, a somewhat higher view of the Person of 
Christ is presented than in the four undisputed Epistles, 
that Christ's work is there regarded from a somewhat 
novel point of view, that a less purely negative attitude 
towards the law is therein assumed than that which 
characterises the controversial Epistles, and that the 
whole subject of Christianity is contemplated in a meta- 
physical way sub specie cetemitatis, rather than in the 

1 Vide his UApotre Paul, translated into English, and published 
by Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton ; a most suggestive and helpful book, 
whatever one may think of his theory as to the development of doc- 
trine in the mind of the apostle. 

2 Vide bis Der Paulinismus. Menegoz (Le Peche et La Bedemp- 
tion d'apres Saint Paul, 1882) speaks of these two works by Sabatier 
and Pfleiderer as best indicating the present state of thought on 
Paulinism. 



8 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

historical manner of the earlier Epistles. The use made 
of the facts is very different. One says : Having regard 
to such facts, it is evident to me that St. Paul's mind 
underwent a process of vital growth as years passed, and 
new circumstances arose to stimulate that ever active 
powerful intellect to fresh thought on the great theme 
which engrossed its attention. The other says : Having 
regard to these phenomena, I have no hesitation in 
affirming that this Epistle to the Colossians is not of 
Pauline authorship, though I am sure it proceeded from 
the Pauline school, for the affinities between it and the 
undoubted writings of St. Paul are very marked. 

In presence of such contrariety of opinion, and consid- 
ering the importance of the issues involved, it is neces- 
sary to come to some sort of conclusion as to this question 
of growth. Now there is no a priori objection to the 
hypothesis of development as applied to St. Paul's 
personal apprehension of the significance of Christianity. 
Growth in knowledge as in grace is the law of ordinary 
Christian life, and there is no stringent reason why we 
should regard an apostle as an exception. Inspiration 
is no such reason. Inspiration was compatible with its 
possessor knowing in part and prophesying in part, for 
St. Paul predicates such partiality of himself. 1 But if 
inspiration be compatible with knowing in part at the 
best, it is also compatible with knowing less at one time 
than at another. We know, moreover, that it was not 
God's way to reveal all truth at one time to the agents 
of revelation. He spoke in many parts and in many 
modes by the prophets to the fathers. Why should He 
1 1 Cor. xiii. 2. 



THE SOURCES 9 

not follow the same method with the apostles : not 
communicating to them at once a full understanding of 
the Christian faith in all its bearings, but simply provid- 
ing that their insight should keep pace with events, so 
that they should always be able to give the Church such 
guidance as was required? The mere fact, therefore, 
that one of St. Paul's reputed Epistles contains teaching 
on any subject in advance of that found in admittedly 
Pauline Epistles is not of itself any proof that that 
Epistle is not also Pauline. Questions of genuineness 
must be settled on independent grounds. 1 

Thus far as to the a priori aspect of the question. 
But how now as to the matter of fact? Is there any 
reason to believe, e.g., that St. Paul had a much clearer 
and deeper insight into the nature and destination of 
Christianity when he wrote the controversial Epistles, 
than at the time of his conversion some twenty years 
before, or at least during the earlier years of his mis- 
sionary activity ? The supposition is in itself reasonable 
and credible, and the burden of proof may seem to lie on 
those who deny it. Much depends on the way in which 
we conceive the conversion and what it involved. For some 
that event signifies very little, for others it means almost 
everything characteristic in Pauline Christianity. I shall 

1 Menegoz admits not only the possibility but the reality of a 
development in St. Paul's thought. But he holds that whatever 
development there was took place before the writing of the Epistle 
to the Galatians, which, he thinks, came next in the order of time 
to the Epistles to the Thessalonians. In the other Epistles, from 
Galatians onwards, he finds no advance in thought. It cannot be 
proved, he thinks, that the Christology of Bomans is behind that of 
Colossians, though Christology is not its specialty, as it is of the 
latter. Le Peche et la Bedemption, pp. 7, 9. 



10 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

have occasion to state my own view in the following 
chapter, and must not anticipate what I have to say 
there. Leaving over the psychological aspect of the 
question till then, I can now only refer to what may be 
supposed to make for the hypothesis of growth in the 
extant Pauline literature. 

The two Epistles to the Thessalonians have been sup- 
posed to furnish indisputable evidence that, previous to 
the great controversy, St. Paul's way of thinking was of 
a simpler, less developed type than is found in the con- 
troversial group. Along with the reports of Pauline dis- 
courses in the Book of Acts, they have been regarded 
as a source of knowledge concerning what is called 
Primitive Paidinism, understood to signify not merely 
what St. Paul thought it fitting to teach to infant 
churches, founded in the course of his missionary jour- 
neys, but his own way of conceiving the gospel antece- 
dently to the great anti-Judaistic controversy. Now that 
these Epistles do present to our view what we may call 
a rudimentary gospel, interesting to note, and, as will 
hereafter appear, justifying an important inference, is 
beyond doubt. But it by no means follows that that 
rudimentary gospel represents all the apostle then knew, 
and that all the great deep thoughts found in the four 
controversial Epistles lay as yet beneath his mental 
horizon. To satisfy ourselves of this we have only to 
reflect when the Epistles in question were written, and 
what had happened before they were penned. It is not 
necessary to inquire into exact dates ; it is enough to 
say that the Thessalonian letters presuppose a Thessa- 
lonian church, and could not have been written before 



THE SOURCES 11 

that church was founded, and until it had had some 
experiences calling for such instruction and counsel as 
the letters contain. Turning now to the memoirs of St. 
Paul's missionary activity in Acts, what do we find ? 
That St. Paul's visit to Thessalonica is placed after the 
Council in Jerusalem, at which the critical question of 
circumcision was discussed and provisionally settled. 
That is to say, the cleavage between the Apostle of 
the Gentiles who appeared at that Council as the 
enthusiastic champion of Gentile liberties, and those 
who took a narrow, conservative view of the question at 
issue, had taken place at least a year or two before the 
letters to the Thessalonian church could possibly have 
been written. How keenly alive to the issues at stake 
St. Paul was at the time when the Council met, we learn 
from his own memoranda preserved in his Epistle to the 
Galatians, where in language thrilling with passion he 
refers to " false brethren unawares brought in, who came 
in privily to spy out our liberty, which we have in 
Christ Jesus." 1 If the apostle had not thought out his 
gospel before, here was a crisis to set him thinking, and 
to stimulate a very rapid theological development. It 
may be taken for granted that by the time he wrote his 
Epistles to the Thessalonians, during his long sojourn in 
Corinth, 2 all his most characteristic ideas had taken their 
place in his system of religious thought. Indeed, there 
is every reason to believe that he had by that time 
already given expression to them, if not in writing, at 

1 Galatians ii. 4. 

2 Such is the general opinion of critics. Paul, Silvanus, and 
Timothy are named together in the salutations. Vide Acts xviii. 5. 



12 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

least in vigorous, incisive speech. The encounter with 
Peter at Antioch referred to in the Epistle to the 
Galatians is not recorded in the Book of Acts, but its 
proper historical place, doubtless, falls within the period 
of St. Paul's stay in Antioch before setting out on the 
long mission tour, which had for its eventful result the 
extension of Christianity from Asia into Europe. 1 In 
that memorable interview, the apostle for the first time, 
so far as we know, gave utterance to his distinctive con- 
ception of the Christian faith. In Galatians ii. 14-21 
we have the Pauline gospel in nuce ; not the supposed 
primitive Paulinism of a yet undeveloped Christian con- 
sciousness, but the fully formulated Paulinism of the 
controversial letters, which contain nothing clearer, more 
definite, or more characteristic than is to be found in 
that remarkable utterance. But that speech to Peter 
was uttered many months before the Thessalonian 
Epistles were written. 2 

If, therefore, we are to find in these Epistles the faint 
outlines of a rudimentary Pauline gospel, forming the 
Christian creed of the apostle before he understood the 
implications of the faith, we must disregard the historical 
notices of Acts, and relegate their composition to a 
period antecedent to the rise of the dispute about circum- 
cision and the meeting of the Jerusalem Conference. 3 

i Vide Acts xv. 35, 36. 

2 The bearing of the above-mentioned facts on the question of a 
primitive Paulinism, supposed to be exhibited in the Epistles to the 
Thessalonians, is very forcibly brought out by Holsten. Vide Das 
Evangelium des Paulus, Vorwort, p. viii. 

3 So Menegoz, who thinks the Epistles to the Thessalonians 
the most doubtful of all Paul's reputed writings, and that ex- 



THE SOURCES 13 

The hypothesis of a primitive Paulinism escapes in that 
case from the control of fact and the hazard of authori- 
tative contradiction. Not altogether indeed, even on that 
gratuitous supposition ; for, from the statement St. Paul 
makes in his Epistle to the Galatians, that he did not 
meet with any of the apostles till three years after his 
conversion, it may very reasonably be argued that, even 
at that early period, his conception of Christianity was 
well defined. Such an inference harmonises with the 
aim of the statement. But of this more hereafter. 

So far, then, as the earliest letters of St. Paul are 
concerned, there is no evidence to support the theory of 
a slow, gradual growth of his system of Christian thought. 
The phenomena they exhibit can neither prove, nor be 
explained by, that theory. But how, then, are they to be 
accounted for? Accounted for in some way they must 
be, for their existence cannot be denied. It is evident 
to every attentive reader that the statements in these 
early letters concerning the Christian faith are of the most 
elementary character. The most likely suggestion is that 
the Epistles to the Thessalonian church show us the form 



pressly on the ground that the views of the gospel they present 
are so unlike what we find, in the other Epistles. His idea is, that 
if they were really Paul's, they must have been written long before 
the others, at a time when Paul's particular tendency was not yet 
accentuated, and his system not yet in course of formation. Vide 
Le Peche et la 'Redemption (Vapres Saint Paul, p. 4. On the historical 
value of the narrative in Acts xv. , and its true place in the course of 
events, vide Spitta, Die Apostelgeschichte, 1891, and Weizsacker's 
Apostolic Age, pp. 200-216. Both these writers are of opinion that 
the author of Acts has antedated the decree of the Jerusalem Council, 
and that it belongs to a later time, later than the encounter between 
Peter and Paul at Antioch. 



14 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

in which St. Paul judged it fitting to present the gospel 
to nascent Christian communities ; when he had in view 
merely their immediate religious needs and capacities, 
and had no occasion to guard them against errors and 
misconceptions. This view sets the apostle's character 
in an interesting light. It makes him appear a Paulinist, 
so to speak, against his will. He preached Paulinism, 
that which was most distinctive in his way of appre- 
hending the faith, under compulsion ; when free from ' 
the constraint of false and mischievous opinions, he 
taught the common faith of Christians in simple, un- 
technical language. This point is worth emphasising at 
the commencement of this study, as helping us at once 
to appreciate the wisdom of the apostle, and to put the 
proper value on the developed system of thought con- 
tained in his controversial Epistles. Why is it that 
the earliest Epistles are not to be reckoned among 
the sources of what we call Paulinism ? Not because 
Paulinism was yet unborn, but because its author 
kept it in its proper place, St. Paul distinguished 
between religion and theology, between faith and know- 
ledge ; and while he spoke wisdom to them that were 
perfect, and theology to them that needed it and could 
make a good use of it, he practised reserve or self- 
restraint in speaking to babes in Christ, and in teaching 
them carefully avoided the use of abstruse ideas and 
technical terms, 

This is the important inference referred to on a pre- 
vious page as deducible from the rudimentary gospel 
contained in the earliest Epistles. And in view of that 
inference it becomes important to inform ourselves as 



THE SOURCES 15 

to the precise character of St. Paul's rudimentary or 
missionary gospel. It is what he deemed sufficient to 
salvation, though not to a full comprehension of Chris- 
tianity. One cannot but desire to know what so great 
a master reckoned essential ; and as his early letters 
are not available for the study of his developed theology, 
one may well be excused for lingering at the threshold 
to glance over their pages before entering on the more 
arduous task. The controversial Epistles are to be our 
text-book, but let us look for a little at those simple, 
childlike Epistles to the Thessalonian church as a kind 
of Christian primer. We shall be none the worse 
qualified for mastering the text-book, and understanding 
its true meaning, that we carry the lessons of the primer 
along with us. 1 

The* use of these Epistles as a primer is justified by 
the writer's own way of expressing himself as to the 
purpose of his writing. Careful readers must have 
noticed the frequent recurrence of such phrases as " ye 
remember," " ye know." Baur utilises this feature as an 
argument against the genuineness, asking in effect : " To 
what purpose this repetition of matters admitted to be 
familiar to the readers, and not of old date, but of quite re- 
cent occurrence? " 2 The obvious reply is, that the writer 
wished to impress upon his readers the importance of 
the things alluded to, his aim in writing being not to 

1 The two Epistles do not stand on a level critically, as many 
critics accept the first who dispute the authenticity of the second. 
But the characteristics commented on here are common to both, and 
may be used in the present connection without discrimination of 
source. 

2 Vide his Paulus der Apostel Jesu Christi, ii. 95. 



16 st. patjl's conception of Christianity 

give new instruction, but to make a fresh impression by 
recapitulating old instructions, and by recalling to mind 
facts of didactic significance. Thus when he says, 
" Knowing, brethren, beloved of God, your election of 
God," a his purpose is, by reminding them of their election 
to salvation, to suggest a valuable source of comfort and 
strengthening amid present tribulation. It is as if he 
had said, Think of your election, and what it implies — 
a sovereign love of God which will not forsake you, a 
divine purpose which shall surely be fulfilled. Again, 
when he says, " Yourselves know our entrance in unto 
you, that it was not in vain ; but even after that we had 
suffered before, and were shamefully entreated, as ye 
know, at Philippi, we were bold in our God to speak 
unto you the gospel of God amid much opposition," 2 he 
manifestly means : As we did not allow our purpose in 
coming to Thessalonica to be frustrated by opposition, 
but resolutely preached the gospel, refusing to be 
intimidated, so do ye resolve that persecution shall not 
make your reception of the gospel vain, and persevere 
in faith in spite of all that evil men may do. When 
once more he reminds them of his way of life among 
them, alluding to his engaging in manual labour for his 
own support, to his nurse-like gentleness, to his perfect 
sincerity, to the purity and exemplariness of his whole 
behaviour, as things perfectly well known to them all, 3 
he means to suggest that they should make his conduct, 
of which a vivid image remained in their minds, a 
pattern for their own. In a word, the apostle treats the 
Christians of Thessalonica as children who need to hear 
1 1 Thess. i. 4. 2 Ibid. ii. 1. 3 Ibid. ii. 5-12. 



THE SOURCES 17 

the same things over and over again, not so much that 
they may know them, as that they may duly lay them 
to heart. And as he evidently does so in the instances 
cited, it is fair to assume that he does so throughout, 
and that all his statements, and in particular those 
referring to the Christian faith and life, are remini- 
scences and repetitions of what he had been accustomed 
to teach persons whom he regarded as spiritual children. 
Let us then collect, in brief summary, the elements 
of gospel truth contained in the few pages of this 
Christian primer. 

1. The name employed by St. Paul, as by Jesus 
Himself, to denote the message of salvation is the 
gospel, more definitely the Gospel of God, an expres- 
sion used repeatedly in the First Epistle, 1 but occasion- 
ally replaced by such phrases as " our Gospel," 2 " the 
Gospel of Christ," 3 "the Word of God." 4 

2. The substance of the message thus variously 
named, is the proclamation of a way of escape from 
" the wrath to come." 5 Salvation, that is to say, is 
regarded chiefly from the eschatologieal point of view. 
Judging from the manner of expression pervading these 
Epistles, the apostle, in addressing heathen audiences, 
was wont to speak of a coming day of judgment, when 
the Lord Jesus would be revealed from heaven to inflict 
punishment on them that know not God, and to tell 
them that by believing on Jesus they should escape the 
doom of the impenitent, and become partakers of all the 

1 1 Thess. ii. 2, 8, 9. 2 Ibid. i. 5 ; 2 Thess. ii, 14. 

3 1 Thess. iii. 2 ; 2 Thess. i. 8. * Ibid. ii. 13. 

5 Ibid. i. 10. 
c 



18 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

joys of the kingdom of God. 1 It may be noticed in 
passing that it is just after this fashion that St. Paul 
is represented in the book of Acts as addressing the 
Athenians On Mars' Hill. 2 This is one of several 
instances in which the accounts of his preaching given 
in Acts correspond with the idea of it suggested by 
the language of these early letters. 

3. As the substance of the gospel is contemplated 
from an eschatological point of view, so Christ, the 
author of salvation, is regarded under the same aspect. 
The great object of Christian trust appears not so much 
as Jesus the crucified, but rather as Jesus exalted into 
heaven, and about to come thence again for the destruc- 
tion of sinners and the salvation of believers. The 
purchase of salvation by Christ's death falls into the 
background, and prominence is given to the final accom- 
plishment of salvation by Christ glorified. This charac- 
teristic comes out in the description of the Thessalonian 
Christians as persons who have turned from idols to 
the living God, and who now " wait for His Son from 
heaven." 3 Their relation to Christ is one of expect- 
ancy. Only once is Christ's death referred to as a 
means of salvation, and that in the most general terms. 
" For," writes the apostle in the text referred to, " God 
hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation 
by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether 
we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him." 4 
Here it is plainly implied that Christ's death took place 
for our salvation, salvation being here, as always in the 

1 2 Thess. i. 5-9. 2 Acts xvii. 30, 31. 

3 1 Thess. i. 10. 4 Ibid. v. 10. 



THE SOURCES 19 

two Epistles, regarded from the eschatological view- 
point; but there is no indication how Christ's death 
contributed to that end. If we were left with no other 
means of determining that question than these Epistles 
we might conclude that Christ's death was saving, not 
by itself, but because it was followed by His resurrec- 
tion. This might not unnaturally appear to be the 
import of another text referring to the death of Jesus : 
" If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so 
them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with 
Him." 1 It would not be right, even on the primer- 
hypothesis, to infer that St. Paul had never made any 
more definite statements than these to the Thessalonian 
church, seeing that they both manifestly owe their form 
to the connection of thought in which they occur. The 
purpose in both cases is to comfort the members of the 
church in reference to deceased friends, also believers, 
by assuring them that death before the coming of the 
Lord would not, as they seem to have imagined, cut 
them off from a share in the joys of the kingdom. 
The comfort given is : Christ Himself died, and after- 
wards rose ; and Christians who have died will also rise 
and partake in the bliss of those who shall be for ever 
with the Lord. Furthermore, Christ died in our behalf, 
for the very purpose that we might obtain salvation ; 
therefore it does not matter whether we sleep with the 
dead, or wake with the living at His coming. God's 
end in His Son's death will not fail ; we shall all live 
together with Him. It may be assumed that, over and 
above this, the apostle in his missionary preaching 
1 1 Thess. iv. 14. 



20 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

indicated at least in a general way that Christ's death 
had reference to sin. This assumption has good founda- 
tion in the summary which he gives of what he had 
been accustomed to teach the Corinthian church: "I 
delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, 
how that Christ died for our sins, according to the 
Scriptures ; and that He was buried, and that He rose 
again the third day, according to the Scriptures." 1 It 
may be taken for granted that St. Paul, like all the 
other apostles — for he gives it as the common gospel 2 
— kept in view the points indicated in this summary, 
not only in Corinth, but wherever he went on his 
evangelising mission. Still it is remarkable that in 
these two letters to a young Christian community no 
express mention is made of the first article in the 
summary ; especially if the design of the writer was to 
rehearse the leading points of instruction, to recall to 
the recollection of the readers what he had taught them 
when he was present with them. It implies this, at 
least, that the apostle was not accustomed in his mission- 
addresses to enter with much fulness or exactness of 
statement into the doctrine of redemption by Christ's 
death. And here again there is a correspondence 
between what we infer from the Epistles, and what we 
learn from the book of Acts. The reports of St. Paul's 
mission-addresses in that book correspond closely to the 
summary of his preaching given by himself in his Epistle 
to the Corinthians. There is, in the first place, careful 

1 1 Cor. xv. 3, 4. 

2 Ibid. xv. 11. " Whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so 
ye believed." 



THE SOURCES 21 

detailed proof from Scripture of the truth of his leading 
positions. Then the points chiefly insisted on are just 
those indicated : Christ's death for sin, and His resurrec- 
tion. The former, however, curiously enough, is the 
less prominent, being rather implied than plainly ex- 
pressed. The words referring to this topic in the first 
and longest of the missionary speeches by St. Paul 
reported in Acts are these : " Be it known unto you, 
therefore, men and brethren, that through this Man is 
preached unto you the forgiveness of sins ; and by Him 
all that believe are justified from all things from which 
ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." 1 

4. In the sentence just quoted, the word "justified " 2 
occurs. No such word occurs in our two Epistles. But 
two other words are found, suggestive of cognate ideas, 
and sufficient to show that St. Paul's way of presenting 
the gospel in mission sermons was the same in essence 
as it appears in the controversial Epistles, the only 
difference being that in the one we have the religious 
kernel, in the other the theological form. These words 
are Faith and Grrace ; trite words now, but greater 
words then, and profoundly significant as to the char- 
acter of the religion of which they were the watchwords. 

1 Acts xiii. 38, 39. Hausrath thinks that the type of St. Paul's 
preaching is to be found in the Epistle to the Eomans — that the 
apostle writes to that church which he had never visited as he 
preached to the churches he himself founded. Vide Neutest. 
Zeitgeschichte, ii. 514, 515. This opinion is based on prejudice 
against Acts as a non-reliable source of information as to St. Paul's 
preaching, not on a just view of the Epistle to the Romans, which, 
as we shall see, was a special writing meant to serve a special 
purpose. 

2 dlKCUU)dT]VCU dlKCUOVTCU. 



22 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

The terms are not used in any sharply denned dogmatic 
sense, but in a practical popular way. Christians are 
called believers — "you who believe." 2 God is repre- 
sented as the object of faith. 2 Faith is not sharply 
opposed to works, but is itself a work. 3 The word 
" grace " occurs less frequently, and chiefly in connec- 
tion with sanctification. In the superscriptions the 
apostle wishes for his readers, already believers, grace 
and peace, and in the superscription of the Second 
Epistle these are represented as having their source in 
God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The grace 
thence emanating is viewed as the means by which 
believers are enabled to glorify the name they bear, and 
are themselves fitted for future glory. 4 In both Epistles 
the writer closes as he begins, with the prayer that 
Christ's grace may be with his readers, as if that were 
all that was needful both for holiness and for happiness. 
It looks as if the writer knew something of the earthly 
life of Him who dwelt among men " full of grace," 
whose sermons were " words of grace," whose gracious 
love drew the sinful and sorrowful to Him, and sent 
them away into purity and peace. 

5. By what titles does St. Paul name Jesus in these 
primer-Epistles ? He calls Him the Son of Grod, and the 
Lord. The former title occurs in the text where the 
Thessalonians are described as having turned to the true 
God, and as waiting for His Son from Heaven; 5 a con- 
nection of thought which gives to the designation much 

1 1 Thess. ii. 13. 2 Ibid. i. 8. 

3 Ibid. i. 3 ; 2 Thess. i. 11. 4 2 Thess. i. 12. 

5 1 Thess. i. 10. 



THE SOURCES 23 

significance. The honour and prerogative of the only 
true God are jealously guarded against the injury done 
to them by idolatrous worship, and yet in the same 
sentence in which this is virtually done Jesus is spoken 
of as a Son of the living and true God, and as one whose 
present abode is in heaven. What impression could 
such language produce on men who had been worshippers 
of gods many but that Jesus was divine ? The other 
title, "Lord," points in the same direction of a high 
doctrine respecting the author of the faith. It is St. 
Paul's favourite title for Christ in his controversial 
Epistles, and it may be regarded as a result of this fact 
that the same title is frequently used in the Gospel of 
Luke (eminently Pauline in spirit) in places where the 
other Synoptists use the name Jesus. The designation 
occurs repeatedly in the two Epistles now under con- 
sideration, sometimes with the effect of identifying 
Jesus in the Christian consciousness with God ; as e.g., 
in the expression, " the day of the Lord," 1 correspond- 
ing to the expression, " the day of Jehovah," in the Old 
Testament, and meaning the day when the irapovala of 
the Lord Jesus Christ shall take place. 

6. Mention is made in these primer-Epistles of the 
Holy Spirit, and in the specifically Pauline sense as the 
Sanctifier. Opportunity will occur hereafter for con- 
sidering at length St. Paul's doctrine of the Spirit, and 
in connection therewith for adverting to the distinction 
between the Spirit as transcendent, and the Spirit as 
immanent; as the former, the source of charisms or 
preternatural gifts, as the latter, the source of Christian 
1 1 Thess. v. 2 ; 2 Thess. ii. 2. 



24 



sanctity. I simply remark here that it is from the 
immanent, ethical point of view that the Spirit is 
regarded in these Epistles, at least chiefly, if not 
exclusively. 1 God gives His Holy Spirit to Christians, 2 
and for the purpose of sanctification? For while salva- 
tion, as already stated, is regarded from an eschatological 
point of view, present sanctification is strongly insisted 
on as a necessary preparation for the future salvation. 
" Chosen unto salvation in or by sanctification," is the 
programme. The apostle reminds his readers that when 
he was with them he had charged them to walk worthily 
of the God who had called them to His kingdom and 
glory. 4 He now tells them that God's will is their 
sanctification, that God had not called them to unclean- 
ness, but to holiness, 5 and that he who practically forgets 
this is guilty of despising God, who gave the Spirit for 
this very end. 6 He sets before them as their great aim 
the sanctification of the whole man — spirit, soul, and 
body. 7 They must cultivate purity ; also unworldliness, 
so as to be free from all suspicion of covetousness, taking 
their teacher as their example. They must resolutely 
fight against every form of evil — drunkenness, impurity, 
greed, revenge, and all other sins of flesh and spirit, as 
Christian soldiers fully armed for the conflict, with faith 
and love for breastplate, and the hope of salvation for 
helmet. 8 The interest of the writer in real Christian 

1 The other aspect may be implied in the exhortation, " Quench not 
the Spirit," 1 Thess. v. 19. 

2 Ibid. iv. 8. 3 2 Thess. ii. 13. 
4 1 Thess. ii. 12. 5 Ibid. iv. 7. 

6 Ibid. iv. 8. 7 Ibid. v. 23. 

8 Ibid. v. 8. 



THE SOURCES 25 

goodness is intense and unmistakable ; and it inspires us 
with confidence that whatever Paulinisrn may mean, it 
will not be found to imply indifference to ethical ideals, 
and their embodiment in right conduct. We may 
expect to discover in the literature of Paulinisrn any- 
thing rather than a divorce between religion and 
morality; if, perchance, at any point the author's 
conception of Christianity may seem to compromise 
ethical interests, he will be sure to manifest a most 
delicate sensitiveness to the slightest appearance of so 
fatal a fault, and great solicitude to obviate misunder- 
standing. 

Of that literature, consisting of the four great 
Epistles to the Galatian, Corinthian, and Roman 
churches, we must next take a rapid survey. But, 
before doing this, it will be advantageous to form as 
definite a conception as possible of the nature and 
import of the writer's religious experience. 



CHAPTER II 

ST. PAUL'S RELIGIOUS HISTORY 

A study of St. Paul's conception of Christianity may 
very fitly begin with an inquiry into his religious 
history, for two reasons. First, because his theology 
is to an unusual extent the outgrowth of his experience. 
He is as remote as possible in his whole way of think- 
ing from the scholastic theologian, being eminently 
subjective, psychological, autobiographical in spirit and 
method. In this he resembles Luther, and indeed all 
the chief actors in epochs of fresh religious intuition. 
Next, because acquaintance with the apostle's spiritual 
history helps us to assume a sympathetic appreciative 
attitude towards a theology which, though utterly non- 
scholastic in spirit, yet, owing its existence to controversy, 
deals to a considerable extent in forms of thought and 
expression belonging to the period, which, to modern 
readers, are apt to wear an aspect of foreignness. How 
many words occur in St. Paul's letters bearing apparently 
a peculiar technical meaning'; words the signification of 
which cannot easily be ascertained, remaining still, after 
all the theological discussion they have provoked, of 
doubtful import. Law, righteousness, justification, adop- 
tion, flesh, spirit — words these eminently Pauline, and 

26 



st. paul's religious history 27 

in a high degree original, therefore interesting, as used 
by him, yet at the same time presenting a somewhat 
artificial appearance, and withal belonging to the region 
of theology rather than to the region of religious intui- 
tion. Something is needed to help one to overcome the 
prejudice thence arising, and it may be found in the 
intense tragic moral struggle lying behind St. Paul's 
theology, and possessing the undying interest of all 
great spiritual crises. In the case of our Lord, we need 
no such aid to sympathetic study of His teaching. His 
mind moved in the region of pure spiritual intuition, 
and His words therefore possess perennial lucidity and 
value. They are, indeed, in form as well as in sub- 
stance, words of eternal life. We have no information 
as to His inner spiritual history, and we do not feel the 
want of it, for the lapse of time has no antiquating 
effect on His profound yet simple utterances. 

The autobiographical hints contained in the Epistles 
which are to form the basis of our study, though com- 
paratively few, are valuable. The passages which exhibit 
most conspicuously the autobiographical character occur 
in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians, and 
in the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. 
From the former we learn that St. Paul, before he 
became a Christian, belonged to the class which in the 
Gospels appears in constant and irreconcilable antagonism 
to Jesus. His religion was Judaism ; in the practice of 
that religion he was exceptionally strict ; he was beyond 
most of his contemporaries a zealot for the legal traditions 
of the fathers. 1 In other words, he was a Pharisee, and 
1 Gal. i. 13, 14. 



28 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

a virtuoso in Pharisaism. His great aim in life was to 
be legally righteous, and his ambition was to excel in 
that line. How much this implies ! It means either 
that this man will never become a Christian, but remain 
through life the deadly foe of the new faith, or it means 
that the very intensity of his Pharisaism will cure him 
of Pharisaism, and make him a Christian of Christians, 
as he had been before a Pharisee of Pharisees, possessing 
exceptional insight into the genius of the new religion, 
and a wholly unexampled enthusiasm in its propagation. 
Which of the two ways is it to be ? The auto- 
biographical hints in the seventh chapter of Romans 
enable us partly to foresee. As St. Paul advanced in 
Judaism, 1 he made one day a great discovery. He 
noticed for the first time that one of the commandments 
in the Decalogue, the tenth, forbade coveting ; 2 that is to 
say, that a mere feeling, a state of the heart not falling 
under the observation of others, was condemned as sin. 
This was a revelation to the Pharisaic zealot as instruc- 
tive for us as it was momentous for him. Two things 
that revelation shows us. One is how completely the 
Pharisaic system had deadened the conscience to any 
moral evil not on the surface. For the average Pharisee 
there was unrighteousness within in countless forms — 
evil appetites, desires, passions, yet totally unobserved as 
states of feeling requiring to be corrected, giving him no 
trouble or distress, because, forsooth, all was clean and 
fair without. Jesus often declared this to be the case, 
and, that His judgment was just, nothing can more con- 
vincingly prove than the fact that for Saul of Tarsus, a 

1 Ibid. i. 14, wpo^KOTTTov iv Tip 'Iov8ai'<T/j.Q>. 2 Bom. vii. 8. 



ST. PAUL'S RELIGIOUS HISTORY 29 

disciple of the Rabbis, insight into so commonplace a 
truth as that coveting is sinful, was an important dis- 
covery. The other thought suggested by the great 
revelation is that Saul, even while a Pharisee, was an 
extraordinary man. The ordinary man is a complete 
slave to the moral fashions of his time. He thinks that 
only evil which passes for evil in his social environment. 
If it be the fashion to disregard evil within, so long as 
external conduct is in accordance with rule, there is no 
chance of his discovering that covetousness or any other 
plague of the heart is morally wrong. He will go 
serenely on his way, unobservant of the inner world, as 
a stupid peasant might pass heedless through pictur- 
esque scenery. But Saul of Tarsus cannot permanently 
do that, for he has moral individuality ; therefore, he 
discovers what others miss. He notes that while one 
precept says, Thou shalt not kill, another forbids what 
may lead to killing — desire to have what belongs to 
another. Not all at once, indeed, for the system under 
which he has been reared has great power over him. 
But, eventually, insight into the searching character of 
God's law must come to such a man. For his con- 
science is not conventional ; it has sharp eyes, and can 
see what to dimmer vision is unobservable, and new 
moral truth once seen it will not be able to take lightly, 
merely because for other men the truth it has discovered 
is of no account. 

The momentousness of the discovery for St. Paul him- 
self it is impossible to exaggerate. It is very easy to 
under-estimate its importance. That to covet is sin is 
so axiomatic to the Christian mind, that it is very diffi- 



30 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

cult to imagine a state of conscience for which it could 
be a great moral revelation. And familiarity deadens 
the power to realise the significance of the new truth 
for one to whom it was a revelation. We can trace 
the effect of this influence in the recent literature of 
Paulinism. Interpreters forget that what is common- 
place now was once very uncommon, and that truth, 
when first revealed, produces very different results from 
those which accompany traditionary belief. In the 
instance before us the new revelation may be said to 
have been the beginning of the end. From the day 
that the eye of Saul's conscience lighted on the words, 
Thou shalt not covet, his Judaism was doomed. It 
might last a while, so far as outward habit and even 
fanatical zeal was concerned, but the heart was taken 
out of it. That is the import of the other autobio- 
graphical hint in Rom. vii. : " When the commandment 
came, sin revived and I died." 1 Hope died, because the 
zealot saw that there was a whole world of sin within, 
of which he had not dreamed, with which it was hard to 
cope, and which made righteousness by conformity with 
the law appear unattainable. This was a great step on- 
wards towards Christianity. All along the youthful en- 
thusiast, according to his own testimony in after years, 2 
had been outrunning his fellow-religionists in pious attain- 
ments. His advance hitherto had been within Judaism. 
But now, without being aware of it, he advances away 
from Judaism, the outward movement being the natural 
consequence of the previous rapid movement within. He 
had been trying to satisfy the innate hunger of his spirit 

1 Bom. vii. 9. 2 Gal. i. 14. 



st. paul's religious history 31 

for righteousness with the food that came first to his 
hand — legal ordinances. It took him some time to 
discover that what he had been eating was not wheat 
but chaff. That discovery once made, the imperious 
appetite of the soul will compel him to go elsewhere in 
quest of true nourishment. It will not surprise us if he 
forsake the school of the Rabbis and go to the school of 
Jesus. 

This we know was what eventually happened. Saul 
of Tarsus became a convert to Christianity. The Pauline 
letters give no detailed account of the memorable event 
similar to the narratives contained in the book of Acts. 
But the main feature in the story, as there told, is referred 
to in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, at the place 
where the apostle enumerates the different appearances 
of the risen Christ. " Last of all He was seen of me 
also." x Modern students of sacred history approach 
this great turning-point in St. Paul's life with very 
diverse bias. Naturalistic theologians desire by all 
means to resolve the objective appearance into a sub- 
jective experience, and to see in the self-manifestation of 
Jesus to the persecutor not a real Chris tophany, but a 
vision due to the convert's excited state of mind. Others, 
dealing with the subject in an apologetic interest, make it 
their business to vindicate the objectivity of the Chris- 
tophany, and its independence of subjective conditions. 2 

1 1 Cor. xv. 8. Vide Acts ix. 1-9 ; xxii. 6-11 ; xxvi. 12-18 for 
the detailed accounts. 

2 So Weiss : Introduction to the New Testament, vol. i. p. 152 ; also 
Stevens, The Pauline Theology, p. 15. Dr. Stevens' work is a valuable 
contribution to the study of Paulinism, though traces of a disciple's 
reverence towards Dr. Weiss are not wanting. In one very impor- 



32 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

Our present concern is not to refute, and still less to advo- 
cate, naturalistic theories of the conversion, but to learn 
all we can as to the inner history which led up to it, 
that we may the better understand the event itself and 
what it involved. 

If the comments above made on the autobiographical 
hint in Rom. vii. be correct, it follows that the conver- 
sion of St. Paul, however marvellous, was not so sudden 
and unprepared as it seems. There was that in the 
previous experience of the convert that pointed towards, 
though it did not necessarily insure, his becoming a 
Christian. Nothing is gained by denying or ignoring 
this fact. And there is more to be included under the 
head of preparation than has yet been pointed out. 
While the objective character of Christ's appearance to 
St. Paul is by all means to be maintained, it is legitimate 
to assume that there was a subjective state answering to 
the objective phenomenon. This may be laid down as a 
principle in reference to all such supernatural manifesta- 
tions. Thus the visions and the voices seen and heard 
by Jesus at His baptism, and at the transfiguration, 
corresponded to and interpreted His own thoughts at 
the moment. Applied to the case of St. Paul, the 
principle means that before Christ appeared to him on 
the way to Damascus, He had been revealed in him, 1 not 
yet as an object of faith, but as an object of earnest 
thought. The Christ who appeared to him was not an 
utterly unknown personality. He had heard of Him 

tant point, however, as will appear, he dissents from his master's 
teaching. 

i Vide Gal. i. 15. 



st. paul's religious history 33 

before, he knew that His followers believed Him to 
have risen again from the dead, and he had had serious 
reflections as to what such an event implied. As to 
the precise character of these reflections we have no 
information, but it is not difficult to make probable 
conjectures. He who was said to have risen from the 
dead had been crucified, mainly by the instrumentality 
of the Pharisaic party to which Saul belonged. By the 
resurrection, if it occurred, the stigma of crucifixion 
had been removed, and the claims of the crucified one to 
be the Christ vindicated. But if Jesus was the Christ, 
what view was to be taken of His death ? Men thought 
that He had suffered for His own offences. What if 
He had really suffered for the sins of others, like the 
servant of Jehovah of whom it was written in ancient 
prophecy : " He was wounded for our transgressions, He 
was bruised for our iniquities." And what if the 
crucified and risen one were a new way of salvation 
for men who like himself had begun to despair of 
reaching salvation by the old time-honoured way of 
legalism ? 

That such thoughts had passed through St. Paul's 
mind is rendered probable by the fact, vouched for by 
his own confession, that before his conversion he perse- 
cuted the disciples of Jesus with passionate zeal. 1 His 
ardour in this bad work was partly due to the energy of 
a man who put his soul into everything. But it was due 
also to what he knew about the object of his fanatical 
animosity. The new religion interested him very much. 
It seems to have fascinated him. He hated it, yet he 

1 Gal. i. 13 : " Beyond measure I persecuted the Church," 



34 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

was drawn towards it, and could not let it alone. He 
was under a spell which compelled him to inquire into 
its nature, and strive to penetrate into the secret of its 
growing power. In consequence, he understood it as well 
as was possible for an unfriendly outsider. He evidently 
regarded it as a rival to Judaism, antagonistic thereto in 
its whole spirit and tendency, as otherwise it is difficult 
to comprehend his fiercely hostile attitude towards it. 
If he did not get this view of the new religion from 
Stephen, as the accounts in Acts would lead us to infer, 
it must have come to him from his own keenly penetrat- 
ing insight. A man like Saul of Tarsus sees below the 
surface of things, and can detect there what is completely 
hidden to the ordinary eye. In this respect he may 
have divined the genius of the new faith better than its 
own adherents, who for the most part very imperfectly 
comprehended what was to grow out of the apparently 
insignificant seed contained in the confession that Jesus 
was the Christ. He perceived that that confession was 
by no means insignificant. What, a crucified man the 
Messiah, shown to be such by resurrection ! That, if 
true, meant shame and confusion to the Pharisees who 
had put Him to death ; yea, and something more serious, 
death to Pharisaism, condemnation of legalism. How, 
might not be immediately apparent, but the fact must 
be so. It cannot be that a crucified risen Christ should 
remain an isolated barren portent. It must have been 
God's purpose from the first, though men knew it not, 
and it must bear consequences proportioned to its own 
astounding character. 

Only on the assumption that some such thoughts had 



ST. PAUL'S RELIGIOUS HISTORY 35 

been working in Saul's mind does his furious hyperboli- 
cal 1 hostility to Christians become intelligible. These 
thoughts combined with those ever-deepening doubts as 
to the attainability of righteousness on the basis of 
legalism fully account for his mad behaviour. They 
also prepare us for what is coming. 2 A man in whose 
soul such perilous stuff is at work cannot be far from a 
spiritual crisis. By the time the Damascus expedition 
was undertaken the crisis was due. Is it asked, " How 
could one on the eve of a religious revolution undertake 
such a task ? " The answer must be that men of heroic 
temper and resolute will do not easily abandon cherished 
ideals, and never are less like surrendering than just 
before the crisis comes. In the expressive phrase put 
into Christ's mouth by the historian of Acts they 
u kick against the pricks." 3 

" Who lights the fagot? 
Not the full faith ; no, but the lurking doubt." 

When a spiritual crisis does come to a man of this 
type, it possesses deep, inexhaustible significance. Such 
was the fact certainly in the case of Saul. In the view 

1 Gal. i. 13, ko.6' VTrep(3o\7]v eblwKovv. 

2 The above account of the preparation for the conversion is, not 
in intention, but in result, a combination to a certain extent of the 
views of Beyschlag on the one hand and of Pfleiderer on the other. 
Beyschlag lays the emphasis exclusively on the fruitless struggle after 
righteousness ; Pfleiderer insists with equal onesidedness on the 
familiarity with the Christian beliefs about Jesus and the processes of 
thoughts these originated in Saul's mind. It seems perfectly feasible 
to take both into account. For the views of Beyschlag, vide Neutes- 
tamentliche Theologie (1892), vol. ii. p. 14 ; for Pfleiderer's, his Pauli- 
nismus : Einleitung. 

3 Acts xxvi. 14. 



36 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

of some writers the spiritual development of this re- 
markable man took place mainly in the period sub- 
sequent to his conversion to the Christian faith. They 
find in the period antecedent to the conversion little or 
no struggle, and in the conversion itself they see nothing 
more than the case of one who, previously an unbeliever 
in the Messiahship of Jesus, had at length been brought 
to acknowledge that Jesus was the Christ, through a 
miraculous demonstration that He was still alive. 1 It 
would, however, be nearer the truth to say that on the 
day Saul of Tarsus was converted, his spiritual develop- 
ment to a large extent lay behind him. For him to 
become a Christian meant everything. It meant be- 
coming a Paulinist Christian in the sense which the 
famous controversial Epistles enable us to put upon that 
expression. The preparation for the great change had 
been so thorough, that the convert leaped at a bound 
into a large cosmopolitan idea of Christianity, its nature 
and destination. The universalism, e.g., which we as- 
sociate with the name of the Apostle Paul, dates from 
his conversion. It was not, as some imagine, a late 
growth of after years, due to the accident of some 
persons of Gentile birth showing a readiness to receive 
the gospel. 2 Such a view is contrary at once to the 
apostle's own statements, 3 and to intrinsic probability. 

1 So Dr. Matheson in his very suggestive and ingenious work on The 
Spiritual Development of St. Paul, pp. 39, 65. In his treatment of the 
subject the alleged development has reference rather to St. Paul's views 
of the Christian ethical ideal than to his theological conceptions. 

2 So Weiss, Introduction, vol. i. pp. 154, 164 ; also Stevens, The 
Pauline Theology, p. 21. 

3 Gal. i. 15. 



st. paul's religious history 37 

The truth is, that a whole group of religious intuitions, 
the universal destination of Christianity being one of 
them, flashed simultaneously into the convert's mind, 
like a constellation of stars, on the day of his conversion. 
As soon as he had recovered from the stunning effect 
of the strange things that befel him on the way to 
Damascus, and emerged into clear, tranquil, Christian 
consciousness, he saw that it was all over with Judaism 
and its legal righteousness, all over with the law itself 
as a way to salvation ; that salvation must come to 
man through the grace of God, and that it might come 
through that channel to all men alike, to Gentiles not 
less than to Jews, and on equal terms, and that therefore 
Jewish prerogative was at an end. The eye of his soul 
was opened to the light of this constellation of spiritual 
truths almost as soon, I believe, as the eye of his body 
had recovered its power of vision. For thought is quick 
at such creative epochs, and feeling is quicker still, and 
we can faintly imagine with what tremendous force 
reaction would set in, away from all that belonged to a 
past now forever dead: from Pharisaic formalism, pride 
and pretension, and from Judaistic narrowness, and from 
intolerance, fanaticism, and wicked, persecuting tempers, 
towards all that was opposed to these in religion and 
morals. 

The foregoing view of St. Paul's conversion, as usher- 
ing him at once into a new world of anti-Judaistic 
thought, is borne out by the autobiographical notices 
of that eventful period contained in the first chapter of 
Galatians. Four points deserve attention here. 

1. The term employed by the apostle to describe his 



38 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

old way of life invites remark. He calls it Judaism. 1 
He was not shut up to the use of that term ; he might 
have employed instead, Pharisaism or Rabbinism. He 
obviously has present controversies in view, and wishes 
to make his references to past experiences tell against 
those whose great aim was to get Gentile Christians to 
Judaise. 2 It is as if he had said: "I know all about 
Judaising and Judaism. It was my very life element 
in long bygone years. There never was such a zealot 
as I was for national customs on grounds at once of 
patriotism and of conscience. I was a perfect devotee 
to the Jewish way of serving God. It is a miracle 
that I ever escaped from its thrall. It was certainly 
by no ordinary means that I was set free ; not by the 
method of catechetical instruction, whether through 
apostles or any others. God alone could deliver me. 
But He could and He did, effectually and once for all. 
To His sovereign grace I owe my conversion to Chris- 
tianity, which meant breaking away completely and for 
ever from Judaism and all that belonged to it." If this 
be indeed a true interpretation of what was in the 
apostle's mind, we can see with what perfect truth he 
could protest that he did not get his Christianity from 
men in general, or from any of the apostles in particular. 
Which of the apostles could have taught him a Chris- 
tianity like that, radically and at all points opposed to 
Judaism ? 

2. The apostle virtually asserts the identity of His 
Gospel throughout the whole period during which he 
had been a Christian. It is the same Gospel which he 
1 Vide vers. 13 and 14. 2 Gal. ii. 14 : 'lovdaifap. 



st. paul's religious history 39 

received "by revelation " 1 at his conversion, which he 
had preached to the Galatians, 2 and which he is obliged 
now to defend against men who call it in question, and 
seek to frustrate it by every means, as e.g. by deny- 
ing the independent apostolic standing of him who 
preaches it. It is a gospel which from the first has 
addressed itself to Gentiles not less than to Jews, and 
which has treated circumcision and the Jewish law as a 
whole, as possessing no religious value for Christianity. 
It may indeed appear as if the assertion that St. Paul 
preached such a gospel to the Galatians at the time of 
his first visit were irreconcilable with what has been 
stated in the first chapter concerning the apostle's mode 
of presenting Christian truth to infant churches. But 
the contrariety is only on the surface. Paulinism was 
implicitly involved in St. Paul's mission-gospel, though 
the implications were not explicitly stated and commented 
on. Universalism and denial of the religious significance 
of the Jewish law were latent in it. Universalism was 
involved in the simple fact that the preacher addressed 
himself to a Gentile audience, and the abrogation of the 
Jewish law was quietly taken for granted by the simple 
fact that the rite of circumcision was never mentioned. 
The preacher held up a crucified and risen Christ 
broadly sketched 3 to the eye of faith as the all-sufficient 
means of salvation, and left it to work its own effect. 
Unfortunately it soon appeared that his Galatian hearers 
did not understand the drift of his gospel as he under- 
stood it himself. They saw no inconsistency in begin- 

1 Gal. i. 12. 2 Ibid. i. 8. 

3 Ibid. iii. 1 : wpo^ypacprj. 



40 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

ning with faith in a crucified Jesus and ending with 
Jewish legalism; but for him these two things then 
and always appeared utterly incompatible. The posi- 
tion he laid down in his interview with Peter at 
Antioch: "If by the law righteousness, then Christ 
died in vain," 1 had appeared to him self-evident from 
the time of his conversion onwards. Becoming a 
believer in Christ meant for him renouncing legal 
righteousness. 

3. The apostle connects his conversion with his call 
to be an apostle to the Gentiles, representing the one 
as a means to the other as an end. " When it pleased 
God to reveal His Son in me that I might preach Him 
among the Gentiles." 2 According to Weiss he is simply 
reading the divine purpose of his conversion in the light 
of long subsequent events, which for the first time made 
him conscious that he was being called in God's provi- 
dence to a specifically Gentile mission. 3 Now it need 
not be denied that such a procedure would be quite in 
keeping with St. Paul's habits of religious thought, but 
it may gravely be doubted whether it suited the position 
in which he was placed when he wrote the Epistle to the 
Galatians. What the circumstances required was, that 
he should make it clear beyond all dispute that he was 
an apostle, and an apostle to the Gentiles, by immediate 
divine authority and equipment ; that both his gospel 
and his call came to him direct from the hand of God. 



i Gal. ii. 21. 2 Ibid. i. 15. 

3 Vide his Introduction to the New Testament, vol. i. pp. 154, 164. 
Here also Dr. Stevens follows Weiss, vide The Pauline Theology, pp. 
21, 22. 



st. Paul's religious history 41 

In presence of men lying in wait for his halting, and 
even ready to charge him with falsehood, if they got the 
chance, could he have so spoken of a call which came to 
him late in the day, from the fact of Gentiles giving an 
unexpected welcome to a gospel, which, so far as the 
preacher's intention was concerned, had not really been 
meant for them ? If that was how the call came, why 
should he regard himself as an apostle to the Gentiles 
more than any of the eleven apostles, who in like 
manner saw in events God's will that Gentiles should 
be admitted to the fellowship of the Christian faith? 
Would his opponents have recognised him as the Gentile 
apostle had they known the facts to be as supposed? 
Would he have dared to state the case as he does in 
his letter to the Galatians, with solemn protestations 
that he was not lying, 1 had his heathen mission been a 
tardy afterthought? What could give him the cour- 
age to make the statement but a distinct recollection 
that the change which made him a Christian gave him 
also the presentiment that the destiny of the converted 
Pharisee was to be Christ's missionary to the pagan 
world ? It is scarcely necessary to add that the view 
advocated by Weiss totally fails to do justice to the 
strength of St. Paul's feeling as the Gentile apostle, to 
the way in which he habitually magnified his office, to 
his fervent devotion to the grand programme, Christian- 
ity for the world. Such an enthusiasm could not be 
the product of external circumstances. It must have 
been the birth of a great religious crisis. Just here lay 
the difference between St. Paul and the Eleven. Their 
1 Gal. i. 20. 



42 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

universalism, if it may be so-called, consisted in bowing 
to God's will revealed in events ; his was a profound 
conviction rooted in a never-to-be-forgotten personal 
experience. He was born, and born again, to be the 
Gentile apostle, gifted both by nature and by regenera- 
tion for his high calling; and only one of whom this 
could be said could have undertaken its arduous tasks, 
and endured its severe trials. 

4. Finally, not without bearing on the question at 
issue, are the particulars mentioned by the apostle as to 
his first visit to Jerusalem after his conversion. The 
precise purpose of this visit is probably not fully indi- 
cated. The apostle deems it sufficient to say that 
he went up to make the acquaintance of Peter, one of 
the leading apostles. 1 But two points are noteworthy: 
the careful specification of the date and duration of the 
visit, and the not less careful exclusion of the other 
apostles from participation in it. St. Paul wishes it to 
be understood that it was a private friendly visit to 
Peter alone, in which the other apostles had no concern. 
To be strictly accurate, he admits that he did see James, 
the Lord's brother, but he alludes to the fact in such a 
manner as to suggest that the meeting was accidental 
and of no significance. There could thus be no question 

1 Gal. i. 18, Lo-TopTjcrai Krjcpav. The verb is used in connection with 
going to see important places, great cities, etc. Bengel remarks 
grave verbum, ut de re magna. St. Paul wishes to suggest that he 
went to visit the great man of the Christian community ; not sneer- 
ingly, hut possibly not without a slight touch of humour. His 
opponents laid great stress upon important personalities. He too 
recognised Peter's importance, but only as an equal, after he had 
kept three years aloof, and he now went to see him as a man who 
sought neither patronage nor advice. 



ST. Paul's religious history 43 

of apostolic authority brought to bear on him on this 
occasion, as at the conference held in the same city 
fourteen years later. Then, as to the date and duration 
of the visit : it took place, says the apostle in effect, 
three years after my conversion, and it lasted just fifteen 
days. Very suggestive specifications, and meant to be 
reflected on in relation to each other. Three years 
passed before he saw any of the apostles, or had any oppor- 
tunity of learning from them. And what eventful years 
in his life, those immediately succeeding his conversion ; 
how much of his spiritual experience he lived through in 
that time, in the solitude of the Arabian desert ! Not 
till those memorable years of intense meditation are over 
does he go up to Jerusalem to see Peter ; and he goes 
then, not as a man still at sea and needing counsel, but 
as one whose mind is clear and whose purpose is fixed. 
He remains with Peter fifteen days. After so long a 
period he still remembers the exact number of days, for 
it was a happy time, and one remarkable man does not 
readily forget the time he has spent in another remark- 
able man's company. And what passed between them ? 
Much talk on both sides doubtless, Paul relating to Peter 
his personal history and present views, Peter communi- 
cating in turn copious reminiscences of his beloved 
Master. The writer of the Epistle to the Galatians can 
have no desire to under-estimate the value of these com- 
munications, otherwise he would not have stated how 
long he was with Peter, but would rather have indicated 
that his stay lasted only for a short while. Very much 
could be said in a fortnight, and it is quite likely that in 
the course of that time, Peter told Paul all he remem- 



44 st. paul's conception or Christianity 

bered of Jesus. 1 Yet fifteen days are a short period 
compared with three years ; quite sufficient for a full re- 
hearsal of the Evangelic memorabilia, but hardly enough 
for a vital process of spiritual development. Paul might 
learn then the contents of our Gospels, such facts as we 
read of in the Gospel of Mark, but it is not then that he 
learned, or could possibly learn, his own gospel. That 
he had got by heart before he made his visit to Peter. 

All this the apostle means to hint, by his brief, rapid 
jottings relating to this early period. He would say, 
After my conversion I took no counsel with men in the 
Church who might be supposed able to advise me, in 
particular I did not put myself in communication with 
any of the apostles. I retired into the desert for a 
lengthened period, that there I might be alone with God. 
At length, when thought and prayer had borne their 
fruit in an enlightened mind and a firm purpose, and the 
time for action had come, after three full years, 2 I felt 
a craving to meet one of the men who had been with 
Jesus, that one who had ever been the foremost man and 
spokesman of the Twelve, that I might hear him talk of 
the earthly life of the Lord to whose service I had con- 
secrated my life. I went to see Peter in Jerusalem, 
desiring from him neither recognition nor counsel, but 

1 Though the apostle quotes very few of our Lord's sayings, yet 
it is not to he doubted that he took pains to make himself acquainted 
with the Evangelic tradition. This may be inferred from the fact 
that he recognised Christ's word as aiitJioritative, as can be gathered 
from 1 Cor. vii. 10, 12, 25 ; ix. 14. Vide on this Weizsacker, Das 
apostolische Zeitalter, p. 595. 

2 The expression fxera %tt) rpLa does not necessarily mean three full 
years, but the purpose of the apostle in making the statement justifies 
the assumption that he is speaking exactly. 



st. Paul's religious history 45 

simply to enjoy friendly intercourse on perfectly equal 
terms with one for whom I entertained sincere respect. 
It was a time of delightful fellowship which I can never 
forget. I remember still the very number of the days, 
and the topics of our conversation each day. The 
memory of it is unmarred by any lingering recollections 
of discord. I opened my heart to Peter and told him 
all my past experiences and my present thoughts and 
purposes. He showed no sign of dissent, and as for the 
other apostles, not even excepting James, whom I did see 
for a few moments, they had no part in our intercourse. 
Yet, what I thought and said then, was just what I think 
and say now. 1 

From the foregoing interpretation of the apostle's 
statement regarding his first visit to Jerusalem, it follows 
that his universalistic antinomian gospel goes back, if 
not to the very hour of his conversion, at least to the 
years immediately following that event and preceding 
the visit. 2 This period might be included within the 

1 Vide on this visit to Peter, Weizsacker, The Apostolic Age, pp. 95-98. 
Weizsacker thinks that St. Paul avoided Jerusalem after his conver- 
sion, because he knew that the spirit prevailing there was alien to 
his own, and that he went up at the end of three years because he 
felt he could now afford to do so, that is, because he had established 
his independence, adopted a definite attitude, and opened his 
apostolic career. From the fact that the visit lasted fifteen days, 
he infers that Peter and he did not quarrel but came to an under- 
standing. 

2 Such is the view of Holsten: vide his Evangelium des Paulus, 
p. 9 ; also of Beyschlag in his Neutestamentliche Theologie : " The main 
lines of his (Paul's) system " (remarks the latter writer), " as sketched 
in his interview with Peter at Antioch before any of his Epistles 
were written, go back, without doubt, to his retirement in Arabia." 
Vol. ii. p. 8. 



46 st. patjl's conception of Christianity: 

conversion, as the time during which the convert attained 
to a full conception of the significance of the great 
event. 

The view advocated in the foregoing pages does not 
imply that St. Paul's system of Christian thought under- 
went no expansion in any direction after the initial 
period. We must carefully distinguish here between his 
religious intuitions and his theological formulations. 
The former fall within the early years or even days of 
his Christian career, the latter may have been the slow 
growth of time ; though even they may to a large extent 
have been worked out during the period of retirement in 
Arabia. The distinction may be illustrated by a single 
instance. Among the " intuitions " may be reckoned the 
perception that righteousness and salvation are not attain- 
able by legal performances, but only by the grace of God 
as exhibited in a crucified Christ. This we are to conceive 
St. Paul as seeing from the first. But he may have had 
to go through a lengthened process of reflection before he 
reached a compact theoretic statement of the truth such 
as we find in the words : " Him who knew not sin, He 
made sin on our behalf, that we might become the 
righteousness of God in Him." That pithy, pregnant 
sentence has all the appearance of being the ripe fruit 
of much thought. 

Another distinction has to be taken into account in 
discussing the question as to the development of Paulin- 
ism. We must distinguish between the positive doctrines 
of the Pauline system and its apologetic elements. At cer- 
tain points, St. Paul's conception of Christianity appears 
weak and open to attack, or, to say the least, as standing in 



ST. PAUL'S RELIGIOUS HISTORY 47 

need of further explanation. He teaches that righteous- 
ness comes not by the law, but by faith in Christ, and 
that it comes on equal terms to all, without distinction 
between Jew and Gentile. Three questions are im- 
mediately raised by this threefold doctrine. First, if 
righteousness come not by the law, what end does the 
law serve ? Next, what guarantee is there for ethical 
interests, for real personal goodness, under the religious 
programme of righteousness by faith? Lastly, if the 
benefits of Christ are open to all men on absolutely 
equal terms, what comes of the Jewish election and 
prerogative ? The answers to these questions constitute 
the Pauline apologetic. It is probable that the apologetic 
ideas of his system came to the apostle latest of all ; 
first the intuitions, next the positive dogmatic formulae, 
lastly, the apologetic buttresses. It need not be sup- 
posed that he never thought of the defences till some 
antagonistic critics arose to point out the weak side of 
his theory. We may be sure that he was his own 
severest critic, and that answers to the three questions 
were imperiously demanded by his own reason and con- 
science. But even on that view the apologetic would 
naturally come last. In logical order, a theory must be 
formed before objections can be taken to it. It must 
first be affirmed that righteousness comes by faith in 
Christ before the question can be raised, But what about 
personal righteousness on that hypothesis? The apostle's 
solution of the difficulty is his doctrine of the mystic soli- 
darity between the believer and Christ. It was probably 
one of the latest, as it is certainly one of the most beau- 
tiful developments in his system of Christian thinking. 



CHAPTER III 

THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 

Like most of the great agents of divine providence, St. 
Paul had large experience of waiting. He had to wait 
a considerable time before an opportunity occurred for 
entering on the mission to the Gentiles to which from 
the first he had felt himself called. He got the " wink of 
opportunity," when, according to the narrative in Acts, 
Barnabas went down to Tarsus to seek Saul, and brought 
him to Antioch, to take part in the movement that had 
begun there. x He had to wait still longer before he 
could utter his deepest thoughts concerning the Christian 
faith. The Gentile mission did not of itself bring the 
fitting occasion, for, as we have seen, he did not judge 
it needful or desirable to say all that was in his mind 
to infant Churches, whether of Jewish, or of Gentile 
origin. He gave them the benefit of his Christian intui- 
tions, in which all was involved for himself though not 
for them, and kept in reserve the deeper ideas of his 

1 Acts'xi. 25. Galatians i. 21-23 shows that St. Paul had not 
been altogether idle up till this time. His first mission was in the 
regions of Syria and Cilicia, and there is no reason to suppose that 
his efforts were confined to Jews, at least on principle. But those 
were the days of small things. Weiss thinks that St. Paul simply 
passed through Syria and Cilicia on his way home. 

48 



THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 49 

theology, content to find in these rest for his own heart, 
conscience, and reason. At length controversy brought 
the hour for speaking. His success as a Gentile apostle 
raised the inevitable question, Must heathen converts 
submit to Jewish rites in order to obtain the benefits of 
salvation and of fellowship with Christians of Hebrew 
extraction ? St. Paul became the earnest champion of 
Gentile liberties, but, as was to be expected, many took 
the opposite view ; hence came bitter conflict, and the 
need for unfolding the latent implications of the common 
faith in Jesus. Of this conflict, on the issue of which 
it was to depend whether Christianity was to have a 
future, the four great Epistles to the Galatian, Corin- 
thian, and Roman Churches are the literary monument. 
The trouble began at the conference at Jerusalem, 
when the question was debated : Must Gentile Christians 
be circumcised? The settlement then arrived at was 
not radical nor final. It seems to have been tacitly 
assumed that in the case of Jewish Christians circum- 
cision remained as obligatory as ever, and, while it was 
agreed that the rite was not to be imposed on heathen 
converts, the delicate question connected with the social 
relations between the two sections of the Church appears 
to have been left in a vague indeterminate state. There 
was room for misunderstandings and the development of 
opposite tendencies, in the direction either of reducing 
the agreement to a minimum by attaching disabilities to 
the position of an uncircumcised Christian, on the one 
hand, or, on the other hand, of treating the exemption 
of Gentile converts from subjection to Jewish rites as 
involving the principle that circumcision was no longer 



50 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

of any religious importance either for Jewish or for 
Gentile Christians. 1 The collision between the two 
leading apostles at Antioch revealed the existence of the 
two tendencies. 2 The cause of that collision was Peter's 
refusal, at the instance of men from Jerusalem, to eat 
with Gentile Christians, after having previously done so 
without scruple. The position taken up by these men 
seems to have been : Gentiles may become Christians 
without being circumcised, but they may not eat with us 
Jews so long as they are uncircumcised ; they must pay 
the penalty of their freedom by being treated by us as 
unclean. This was in effect to adhere to the Jerusalem 
compact in the letter, and to set it aside in the spirit. 
St. Paul felt this, and took occasion to state very plainly 
to his brother apostle his view of the situation in a 
speech in which Paulinism was for the first time 
definitely formulated. The speech was delivered in 
public, " before all," and produced momentous conse- 
quences. The conservatives became a party bitterly 
opposed to St. Paul, and bent on counteracting his 
influence, apparently organising for that purpose a 
regular anti-Pauline propagandism, following in the 

1 Holsten too strongly characterises the Jerusalem compact as a 
separation-union (Sonderangs-einigung), based on an inner contra- 
diction of views. Vide Das Evangelium des Paulus, p. 24. 

2 Some writers place this collision between the second and third 
missionary journeys, during the visit of St. Paul to Antioch, referred 
to in Acts xviii. 22, two or three years after the Jerusalem Con- 
ference. But if the agreement come to was diversely understood as 
above indicated, the misunderstanding would not take years to show 
itself. It would appear on the earliest opportunity. Men like the 
false brethren referred to in Galatians ii. 4 would be on the outlook 
for a chance of making the compact null and void. 



THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 51 

apostle's footsteps wherever he went, not to convert 
pagans to Christianity, but to pervert converts to their 
own Judaistic views of the Christian faith. 

Though the controversy between St. Paul and the 
Judaists originally and immediately referred to the rite 
of circumcision, it involved wide issues and raised more 
than one question of grave import. As the conflict 
went on, three topics assumed in succession the place of 
greatest prominence : the perpetual obligation of the law, 
the qualifications for apostleship, and the prerogatives of 
Israel as an elect people. To set aside circumcision was 
virtually to annul the whole law, argued St. Paul's 
opponents, and he admitted the accuracy of their logic, 
and drew the seemingly impious inference that the 
gospel of salvation through faith in Christ involved the 
entire abrogation of the law as a way to acceptance with 
God. Thereupon the Judaists raised a new question: 
Who is the man who dares to teach so blasphemous a doc- 
trine against the divinely-given law of Moses ? By what 
authority does he take it upon him to interpret Chris- 
tianity in this revolutionary sense? He calls himself 
an apostle : what right has he to the name ? He is not 
one of the Twelve who had been with Jesus, and none 
but they can authoritatively bear witness to, or interpret, 
the mind of the Lord, nor can anyone be a true teacher, 
not to say an apostle, whose doctrine is not in accordance 
with their testimony. It is easy to see how the logic of 
their position led the Judaists to make such an assault 
upon St. Paul's claim to be an apostle, and how he in 
turn could not shirk the question thus raised, but was 
equally bound by the logic of his position to show that 



bZ ST. PAULS CONCEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 

in calling himself the apostle of the Gentiles he was not 
guilty of usurpation, though he was neither one of the 
Twelve nor acting under their authority. But that 
question disposed of, still another remained: On St. 
Paul's view of Christianity in relation to the law, what 
about the election of Israel ? She had long been God's 
chosen people, enjoying valuable privileges — could that 
be a true conception of Christianity which involved the 
virtual denial or cancelling of Israel's election? Here 
again the apostle of the Gentiles was put upon his 
defence, and summoned to the solution of a hard problem 
— the reconciliation of His Gospel with the past history 
of the Jewish nation. 

These three questions respecting the law, the aposto- 
late, and the election, were all essentially involved in the 
great controversy, and they were probably all from the 
outset present, more or less distinctly, to the thoughts of 
both parties. Yet one may be said to have been more 
prominent at one time and another at another, so that 
the three topics may be regarded as denoting distinct 
stages in the controversy. The three stages are easily 
recognisable in the relative literature. For while one or 
other of the four Epistles may contain passages bearing 
on all the three topics, more or less clearly, yet they 
may be classified according as this or that topic is the 
one chiefly discussed. The Epistle to the Galatians is 
occupied predominantly with the first of the three 
themes, the two Epistles to the Corinthians (to be 
regarded in this connection as one) with the second, and 
the Epistle to the Romans, in the matter peculiar to it, 
with the third. In G-alatians St. Paul defends the hide- 



THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 53 

pendence of Christianity against those who would make 
Christendom subject to Jewish law and custom ; in 1 
and 2 Corinthians he defends his own independence and 
authority as a God-commissioned apostle of the Gentiles 
against those who asserted the exclusive authority of the 
eleven ; in Romans, while giving a comprehensive state- 
ment of his views on the gospel, he addresses himself 
very specially to the solution of the problem how to 
reconcile his idea of Christianity with the admitted 
truth that Israel had for many centuries been God's 
elect people. 

In all our references to the four Epistles, it has been 
assumed that their proper order is that in which they 
have been named in the foregoing paragraph. That they 
were actually written in this order is the opinion of the 
majority of commentators. Some English scholars, how- 
ever, favour a different order, placing the Epistles to 
the Corinthians first, and G-alatians between them and 
Romans. In his valuable commentary on G-alatians, 
Bishop Lightfoot has carefully discussed the question, 
and given weighty reasons in support of this arrange- 
ment. 1 His two main arguments are based on the great 
similarity in thought and expression between G-alatians 
and Romans, and on the manner in which the apostle 
speaks in these two Epistles and 2 Corinthians respec- 
tively concerning his tribulations: with copious details in 
the last-mentioned Epistle, with one pointed reference in 
Galatians, 2 very mildly and bat seldom in Romans. In 
both cases the facts are as stated ; the only point open 
to dispute is whether the inference be irresistible. The 
1 Vide the Introduction, pp. 36-56. 2 Gal. vi. 17. 



54 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

similarity between Galatians and Romans is explained 
by the supposition that the latter Epistle was written 
shortly after the former, while the echoes of its utter- 
ances still lingered in the writer's mind. But this is not 
the only possible explanation of the phenomenon. It 
may be accounted for by the hypothesis that the apostle 
in both Epistles was drawing upon a stock of Christian 
thought which in its essential positions, in the arguments 
on which these rested, and even in verbal expression, 
was to a large extent stereotyped, and thoroughly 
familiar to himself, though new to his readers. In that 
case letters touching on the same topics, no matter what 
interval of time separated them, would exhibit such 
resemblances as have been shown to exist in the two 
Epistles in question. The other set of facts also admits 
of another explanation besides that given by Bishop 
Lightfoot. His theory is that the Epistle which says 
most about apostolic tribulations must have been nearest 
them in the date of its composition. But the truth is 
that the prominence given to that topic in 2 Corinthians 
is not due to the recentness of the experiences, but to 
their appositeness to the purpose on hand. As will 
hereafter appear, the trials he endured formed an im- 
portant part of St. Paul's argument in support of his 
apostleship. 1 

1 In a recent article in the Expositor (April 1894), the Rev. F. 
Rendall, M.A., discussing the two topics as to the locality of the 
Galatian Churches, and the date of the Epistle to them, comes to the 
conclusion that this Epistle is not only earlier than the other three 
of the same group, but "the earliest now extant of St. Paul's 
Epistles," dealing with the agitation created in Galatia, by what he 
calls "a last effort of the Judaising 'party in 51." On Bishop Light- 



THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 55 

I adhere therefore to the order previously indicated, 
which, apart from all historical questions as to dates of 
composition, best suits the logic of trie controversy, and 
proceed to take a rapid survey of the Epistle to the 
Galatians. 

The very first sentence shows that something has 
occurred to disturb the spirit of the writer. In his 
letters to the Thessalonians St. Paul gives himself no 
title ; here, on the other hand, he not only calls himself 
an apostle, but takes pains to indicate that for his 
apostolic standing he is indebted neither primarily nor 
subordinately to any man or body of men, but to God 
alone. 1 The same thing may be said of every true 
apostle and prophet, but why so peremptory an assertion 
of independence ? Because there are those who assail 
his independence, and desire to make out that he is 
either no apostle at all, or one subordinate to the eleven, 
and therefore bound to conform in opinion and action to 
their authority; and all this in order to undermine his 
influence as a teacher of views which the assailants 
regard with aversion. Fully aware how closely belief in 
his authority as a teacher is connected with continued 
adherence to his doctrine, the apostle commences with 
this topic, and sets himself in a very thorough, earnest 
way to demonstrate the originality of his gospel, and his 
entire freedom as the apostle of the Gentiles from all 

foot's argument from similarity of style he remarks : "A man may 
well repeat the same thoughts and the same expressions at consider- 
able intervals if the intervening tenor of his life and his environ- 
ment continue constant." 

1 ovk dx' avdp&irwv ovbt 8l avdpdjirov ; not from men {e.g. the 
eleven), as ultimate source, nor by any man as instrument. 



56 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

dependence on the other apostles. This, however, is not 
the leading aim of the Epistle, though it forms the topic 
of the first two chapters. The main purpose is revealed 
in the sentence following the salutation and doxology, 
in which the apostle suddenly and indignantly exclaims : 
" I am surprised that ye have so soon turned away from 
him who called you in the grace of Christ unto another 
gospel." 1 The unhappy change alluded to is from a 
gospel of salvation by grace to a gospel of salvation 
by circumcision, and the leading aim of the apostle 
is to check the perverse movement, and to bring back 
the Galatians to their first faith. The section bearing 
on the apostle ship from chap. i. 11 to the end of chap. 
ii. may be viewed as a long parenthesis, after which the 
main theme is resumed, and the Galatians are again 
directly addressed and remonstrated with for allowing 
themselves to be led away. 

This section, though parenthetical, is very important 
in its bearing on the main design of the Epistle. It 
consists of three parts, of which the first is intended to 
show that St. Paul was not indebted to the other apostles 
for his knowledge of Christ and of the gospel (i. 11-24) ; 
the second, that he was in no wise controlled by them in 
regard to his preaching of the Gospel (ii. 1-10) ; the 
third, that so far from any of the apostles prescribing to 
him what he should preach, the fact was that he, on the 
contrary, had occasion to remonstrate with one of the 

1 Gal. i. G. The expression ovtcos rax^^ is founded on by most 
interpreters as proving that Galatians must have been written before 
1 and 2 Corinthians shortly after St. Paul's second visit to Galatia, 
at the beginning of his three years' residence in Ephesus. 



THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 57 

pillar-apostles, St. Peter, in regard to unstable, incon- 
sistent conduct, fitted to compromise the great principles 
of the gospel (ii. 11-21). What he says on the first 
head amounts to this, that he had neither the inclination 
nor the opportunity to learn much about Christianity 
from the apostles. In the second part, he gives an 
extremely interesting account of important occurrences 
in connection with the Jerusalem Conference, which un- 
fortunately has given rise to much diversity of opinion 
among critics and interpreters. But amid much that is 
doubtful one thing is clear. The apostle most distinctly 
states that the pillar-apostles with whom he held con- 
ference, " added nothing to him," 1 that is, gave him no 
additional instructions as to what he should preach, 
found no fault with his gospel as frankly explained to 
them, were content that he should continue preaching as 
he had preached. They reverently recognised the hand 
of God in the whole career of this man : in his conver- 
sion, in his conception of the nature and destination of 
Christianity, in his success as a missionary to the 
Gentiles. They acquiesced in his gospel of uncircum- 
cision as at least suitable for heathen converts, and 
wished him all success in preaching it in heathen parts, 
while they confined their own ministry to the Jewish 
world, being humbly conscious of unfitness for work in 
any other sphere. Such being the attitude of the 

1 Gal. ii. 6. ovdkv irpovavedevro. The verb in classic Greek means 
to lay on an additional burden. In later Greek it means to impart 
to, either to give or to get advice, instruction, or injunction. Here 
it means that the apostles gave no additional instructions. In chap. 
i. 16 the same word is employed in the other sense : ov Trpoaavedefirjv. 
" I did not consult in order to get advice." 



58 ST. PAUL'S CONCEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 

eleven, their authority could not truthfully be appealed 
to in support of a reactionary movement which strove to 
reduce the Jerusalem compact to a minimum, or even to 
make it a nullity by endeavouring to induce Gentile 
Christians to submit to circumcision, as the Judaist 
sectaries seem to have done in Galatia. 

The third division of the long parenthesis respecting 
the apostleship is the most important of all. It exhibits 
St. Paul as teaching one of the pillar-apostles, instead of 
being taught by them, the true nature of the gospel ; 
yet not teaching a new gospel, as if his gospel were 
different from that of the other apostles, but rather 
showing to St. Peter the true import of his own gospel; 
the scope, tendency, and logical consequence of his own 
professed principles. The doctrinal statement it con- 
tains is an epitome of Paulinism, given in a few rapid, 
impassioned sentences, charged at once with the thor- 
ough-going logic of a powerful intellect, and the in- 
tense emotion of a great manly heart. There is nothing 
more stirring in the whole range of the Pauline literature, 
nothing more convincing, than this swift, eloquent sketch 
of the gospel of uncircumcision, brought in incidentally, 
in the course of a historical narrative intended to vindi- 
cate the apostle's independence, but serving afar higher 
purpose also, viz., to vindicate the independence of the 
gospel itself as a gospel of free grace, meant for the sal- 
vation of all sinners alike, and able to save all in the 
most efficient manner without the aid of legal ordinances. 
As against Peter the memorable utterance makes good 
three serious charges : that he has been guilty (1) of 
virtually excommunicating the Gentile Christians by 



THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 59 

insisting on their complying with Jewish custom as a 
condition of fellowship, 1 (2) of self -stultification in build- 
ing again the things he had destroyed, (3) of frustrating 
the grace of God by in effect declaring that it is insuffi- 
cient for man's salvation, and needs to be supplemented by 
legal performances. Viewed not polemically but didac- 
tically, the passage briefly indicates all the leading ideas 
of the Pauline theology in much the same order as in 
the Epistle to the Romans. Jews by birth and Gentile 
" sinners " on a level, as unable to save themselves by 
their works, Jews being sinners not less than Gentiles, 
though proudly applying the epithet to the latter as if it 
had no reference to themselves ; faith the sole way to 
justification for both, faith in Jesus Christ crucified; 
justification by faith and justification by the law mutually 
exclusive ; by faith, therefore, the law abolished, so that 
the believer in Jesus is no longer bound by it ; finally, 
the Christian life a life of mystic union and communion 
with Christ, and of devoted love to Christ in response to 
the love wherewith He loved us, in giving Himself to 
death for our salvation. It is obviously not solely for 
historic reasons that the apostle repeats here this re- 
markable confession of his faith. He has in view the 
present instruction of the Church to which he writes, 
and means, though he does not put it down on paper, 
" this is what I said to Peter then, and this I say to you 
now." 

We come now to the main part of the Epistle (chaps, 
iii -v.). The contents of this part may be summed up 

1 Gal. ii. 14 : irds t<x edvrj dvay /carets 'lovdatfciv. The compulsion 
lay in Peter's example. 



60 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

by three phrases : 1. Legalism condemned, chap. iii. ; 2. 
Christian liberty asserted, chap, iv.-v. 1-6 ; 3. Abuse of 
liberty censured, chap. v. 13-26. 

1. Full of enthusiasm for the creed which he has just 
expounded, the apostle passes on to its defence with 
a natural feeling of surprise and vexation that so 
unwelcome a duty should be necessary. He cannot 
understand how a church to which a crucified Christ 
has been broadly proclaimed 1 should lapse into legalism. 
A crucified Christ meant everything to him, why should 
He not be everything to them ? Who could have be- 
Avitched them, for it seemed as if the result could be 
accounted for only by the fascinating spell of some 
malign power? Alas! the unhappy change is not so 
difficult to understand as St. Paul seems to have imagined. 
There is nothing so natural as this lapse in the case of 
the average Christian, nothing so common; Christian 
life habitually maintained up in the pure Alpine region 
of the Pauline faith is the exception rather than the rule. 
For few are so consistent in their logic as St. Paul, so 
thorough in the application of first principles, so possessed 
by the love of Christ, and therefore so jealous of every 
other servitude. St. Paul's doctrine is, after all, a heroic 
doctrine, and it needs spiritual heroes to appreciate it 
and do it justice. Besides, it has to be remembered that 
while the apostle had his experience of legalism before 
his conversion, for most men it comes after. Few escape 
taking the spiritual disease at some time or other. 

The Galatian Church caught the evil infection from 
the Judaist propagandists, and so their first teacher must 

1 Gal. iii. 1, -rrpoeypdcpTj, well rendered by Lightfoot "placarded." 



THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 61 

argue the matter with them. The heads of his argument 
lie before us. How it told on the Galatians we do not 
know ; to ourselves it may appear of varying value, and 
occasionally such as to remind us that the writer was 
once a disciple of the Rabbis. The first proof is not the 
least convincing, being a direct appeal to experience. 
How, asks the apostle, did ye receive the Spirit who 
wrought in you and through you so mightily ; by doing 
legal works, or by believing the good tidings ye heard 
from my lips ? And if in this way your Christian life 
began, why forsake it now? If faith was so powerful at 
first, why should it not be equally powerful all through ? 
Listen not to the men who would enslave you to the 
law ; listen rather to God, who gave you His spirit and 
wrought miracles among you, before ever you heard a 
word of circumcision or the Jewish law, thereby showing 
that these things are no wise necessary or conducive to 
salvation. 

To be noted in this first line of reasoning is the pointed 
way in which law is opposed to faith, and flesh to spirit. 
" Received ye the spirit from the works of the law, or 
from the hearing of faith ? " " Having begun in the 
spirit, are ye now being perfected in the flesh?" We 
have here two of the great Pauline antitheses. 

The apostle's next appeal is to the history of 
Abraham, 1 obviously an important topic in an argu- 
ment with men enamoured of Judaism. If he could 
make it appear that history was on his side, a great 
point would be gained. To what extent is he success- 
ful? To this extent, at least, that in the patriarch's 
1 Gal. iii. 6-9. 



62 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

history acceptableness to God is associated with faith, 
and the promise embraces in its scope the Gentiles. 
The story makes the broad impression that men please 
God not by doing this or that, bnt by believing in Him, 
and that whoever believes in God, whether Jew or 
Gentile, ma}^ hope to share in His grace. This length 
a modern student of Scripture may go, without pretend- 
ing to find St. Paul's doctrine of justification by faith, 
in the technical theological sense, in the Book of Genesis. 

The next point the apostle makes is this : while by 
faith you share the blessing of Abraham, what you get 
from the law is not blessing but cursing. 1 Is it not 
written, " Cursed is every one that continueth not in all 
things which are written in the book of the law to do 
them " ? The most notable thing in this section of the 
argument is the saying concerning the function of Christ 
in relation to the law's curse. Christ hath redeemed us 
from the curse of the laiv, being made a curse for us; the 
proof that He was made a curse being that He suffered 
death in the form of crucifixion. 2 This is doubtless one 
of the great Pauline logia ; a new utterance but an old 
thought, dating even in its expression from early years. 
It is more than the simple statement of a religious faith, 
it contains the germ of a theological theory ; for latent 
in it is the principle that the Redeemer of men must 
share their lot in order that they may share His 
privilege, a principle of which we shall find other 
exemplifications in the Pauline Epistles. 

The apostle proceeds to base an argument on the 
mere date of the Sinaitic legislation. 3 Given above four 

1 Gal. iii. 10-14. 2 Ibid. iii. 13. 3 Ibid. iii. 15-18. 



THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 63 

hundred years after the promise, and of course not for 
the purpose of setting it aside, the law must have been 
intended to perform some function in subordination to 
the promise. This at once raises the question, What was 
that function ? " What then the law ? " 1 St. Paul's full 
answer to the question is not given here ; we must wait 
for it till we come to his Epistle to the Romans. What 
he does say in the present Epistle is a little obscure, 
owing to the rapid movement of his thought, which 
rushes on like a mountain torrent. Had we no other 
information as to his doctrine concerning the law, we 
might readily take his meaning to be that it was added 
to restrain transgression. It would be nearer the truth 
to say that he means to suggest that the law was given 
in favour of transgression, 2 to provoke resistance to 
its behests. This is certainly a very bold idea, but it 
is none the less likely to be Pauline. The apostle's 
whole doctrine of the law is one of the most start- 
lingly original features in his apologetic system of 
thought, which we might be tempted to regard as an 
extravagance into which he was driven by the exigencies 
of controversy. This, however, would be a very mista- 
ken idea. It is, we may be sure, no hastily extemporised 
theory, but the carefully thought-out solution of a prob- 
lem which pressed heavily on the apostle's mind, from 
the day he arrived at the conclusion that the law, what- 
ever it might be good for, was certainly not the way to 
the attainment of righteousness. 

1 Gal. iii. 19. 

2 So Lipsius, Die Paulinische Bechtfertigungslehre,"p. 75 (1853), 
Menegoz, and many others. 



64 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

While failing to give a full statement of the solution 
in this Epistle, the apostle makes some very instructive 
suggestions respecting the law's function. For this pur- 
pose he employs three comparisons, likening the law 
first to a gaoler who, after provoking men to transgres- 
sion, throws them into prison, and keeps them there 
under lock and key; 1 next to a pcedagogus, entrusted 
with the moral supervision of a child ; 2 lastly, to the 
guardians and stewards who have charge of the person 
and property of the heir to an estate during the time of 
his minority. 3 All three comparisons have one general 
object in view, to show how the law might have a real 
function, yet only a temporary one issuing in release 
from its power. The gaoler's function is real and 
necessary, but the time comes when the prisoner must 
be set free. The \ pcedagogus in a Greek or Roman family 
served a useful if humble purpose in the moral nurture 
of a child of tender years, but in due course the child 
outgrew his influence. The care of guardians and 
stewards is most necessary to the well-being of an heir 
and the preservation of his inheritance, but it ceases, as 
a matter of course, when he comes of age. The figures 
all serve further to convey a hint as to the comparatively 
ungenial nature of the law's function; to exhibit it as 
such, that the subject of it will be glad to escape from 
it when the time of release arrives. It appears at its 
worst under the figure of a gaoler ; less repulsive under 

i Gal. iii. 23. 

2 Ibid. iii. 24. iraLbaywybs is untranslatable because the function is 
unknown among us. 

3 Ibid. iv. 2. iwtTpdwovs, having charge of the person ; oIkovo/jlovs, 
having charge of the property. 



THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 65 

the guise of the pcedac/ogus, because the subject is now 
conceived not as a criminal but as a child, though even 
his mode of treatment is harsh compared with that of a 
parent ; 1 least irksome under the final figure, for now 
the child is grown to be a youth, and the guardians and 
stewards do not forget what he will be ere long, yet 
becoming increasingly unwelcome as the future heir 
advances towards maturity, and longs with growing 
eagerness for escape from authority into self-control. 
Under all three aspects, even the mildest, the reign of 
law is bearable only for a time, creating in the subject 
an irrepressible desire for liberty. 

2. Liberty came with Jesus Christ. Of this con- 
genial theme the apostle goes on to speak. He 
introduces the subject in connection with the last of 
the above-mentioned comparisons, which he regards as 
the most important of the three, as appears from the 
formal manner in which he brings it in : "Now I say," 
etc. 2 He has hinted already at the truth that with 
Christ the era of liberty or true sonship began, 3 but he 
is able now to make a more adequate statement of the 
fact, in connection with the figure of the heir in a state 
of pupilage, which gives it an effective setting, and 
brings out the epoch-making significance of the advent of 
Jesus in the general religious history of the ivorld. In 
terms of that figure he represents the advent as marking 

1 This is the point emphasised by Lipsius, Die Paulinische Becht- 
fertigungslehre, p. 80. The pcedagogus acts with rigour, not with 
love. On the other hand, Menegoz thinks that the temporariness of 
the office is the one thing to be insisted on, Le PecJie et la Bedemption, 
p. 115. But there is a reference to both aspects. 

2 Gal. iv. 1 : \eyu 5t. :i Ibid. iii. 26. 



66 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

the point at which mankind, the son of God, arrived at 
its majority. Then commenced the era of grace, of 
liberty, of sonship, of the new humanity in which is 
neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, 
but all are one in Christ. 1 It is a truly magnificent 
thought, one of the greatest in the whole range of 
Paulinism. And one cannot but feel with what 
powerful effect Christ's agency in bringing about the 
great change is spoken of in association with this grand 
philosophic idea. " But when the fulness of the time came, 
God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under 
the law, that He might redeem them that were under the 
law, that we might receive the adoption of sons" 2 Here 
is another great Pauline logion, a fresh contribution to 
the theology of the cross, applying the principle of 
solidarity between Redeemer and redeemed in a new 
direction. The subject of redemption being under law, 
the Redeemer also came under law, that by this act 
of grace He might put an end for ever to the state of 
legal bondage. It is noteworthy that the apostle 
refers not only to Christ's subjection to law, but to 
His birth. Why is this? Perhaps we should avoid 
too recondite explanations, and adopt the simple sug- 
gestion that the form of subjection to law which he 
has in his mind is circumcision, the bone of contention 
"between himself and the Judaists. In that case his 
thought may thus be paraphrased: Jesus came to be 
born of a woman, and then, being a Jew, to be circum- 

i Gal. iii. 28. 

2 Ibid. iv. 4, 5. The idea of adoption will come up for discussion 
at a later stage. 



THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 67 

cised, and so to deliver us from bondage to that rite and 
all that goes along with it. Thus viewed, this great 
text ascribes redemptive power, not merely to Christ's 
death, but to His whole state of gracious humiliation. 

The objective ideal significance of Christ's coming 
being that it inaugurated the new era of filial freedom — 
prison doors opened, children grown to manhood, the 
heir no longer a minor, it is easy to see what duty is 
incumbent on the Christian. It is to understand the 
nature of the new era in which he lives, to enter 
sympathetically into its spirit, and subjectively to realise 
its lofty ideal. Obligation lies on him to be free indeed, 
as a son of God arrived at his majority. That accord- 
ingly is what the apostle next proceeds to insist on. 
Appealing once more to the experience of his readers in 
confirmation of the view of Christianity he has just 
presented, " Did you not," he asks in effect, " find some- 
thing in your own hearts which told you that Jesus 
came to introduce the era of sonship ? Was there not 
a spirit in you which made you call God Father ? It 
was God sending the Spirit of His own well-beloved Son 
into your breasts, that you might be sons in feeling as 
well as in legal standing. Be faithful, then, to that 
spirit whose promptings ye once obeyed. Return not 
again to bondage to the weak and beggarly elements, 
whether of Jewish legalism or of Pagan superstition, 
from which it was the very purpose of Christ's coming 
to redeem you." x Such is the drift of chapter iv. 6-20, 
omitting points of minor importance. 

1 The words r& aadevrj kcll tttojx^ crroLxeia are generally inter- 
preted as having this double reference. Srotx^a means literally the 



68 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

With this pathetic appeal the apostle might well 
have concluded his argument. But his active mind is 
full of ideas, and he has yet another train of thought 
in reserve by which he hopes to commend his doctrine 
of Christian freedom from the law to the acceptance of 
his readers. Abraham having done service in establish- 
ing the doctrine, his family is now made to perform its 
part by the allegory of Sarah and Hagar and their sons. 1 
Here again the Christian apostle and prophet may 
appear to be clad in the robe of a Rabbi, but let not 
that be to his prejudice. Take the allegory for what 
it is worth ; as poetry rather than logic, meant not so 
much to convince the reason as to captivate the imagi- 
nation. If it served that purpose at a great crisis in 
the world's religious history, was it not worth while, 
even if it should be of little value to us? At the very 
least, it has autobiographical interest, for the prose poem 
obviously bears a date upon it. It comes to us from 
the period of the retirement in Arabia, and we scent 
the keen air of the desert as we read it. Let us read 
and silently enjoy, abstaining from the stupidity of a 
prosaic detailed interpretation. 

One can understand the passionate earnestness with 
which this man of prophetic, poetic soul, true son of the 
Jerusalem above, once more appeals to the Galatians to 

letters of the alphabet ranged in rows, and the idea suggested is that 
the Jewish and Pagan religions were fit only for the childhood of the 
world, when men were, as it were, only learning their letters. 

1 Chap. iv. 21-31. Vide on this Professor Findlay's most felicitous 
commentary on the Epistle (Expositor'' s Bible). He hits off the 
spirit of the passage by the remark: " He will tell his 'children' a 
story." 



THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 69 

stand fast in their Christ-bought liberty, and not to 
become re-entangled in a yoke of bondage, and warns 
them that that must be the inevitable effect of their 
submitting to the rite of circumcision. 1 And how 
welcome, after the subtle argumentation of the previous 
chapter, the brief sententious statement of the healthy 
normal Christian attitude on all such questions as were 
in debate. " We (Christians who know where they are) 
in the Spirit from faith wait for the hope of righteous- 
ness. For in Christ neither circumcision availeth anything 
nor uncircumcision, but faith energetic through love" 
This is another of the great Pauline words, having for 
its import: circumcision et hoc genus omne, good for 
nothing, faith good for everything ; good to begin with, 
and not less good to end with ; good to sanctify as well 
as to justify, because it is a powerful practical force 
operating through the highest motive, love. 2 

3. On the apostle's warning against the abuse of 
liberty (chap. v. 13-26) little need be said, beyond 
remarking that on this score he exhibits here, as always, 
a most becoming sensitiveness. He traces the source of 
abuse to the flesh, and finds the antidote in walking by 
the Spirit. 3 He makes no attempt here, as in Romans, 
to show how moral licence is excluded by a right view 
of the relation subsisting between the Christian and 
Christ, but he compensates for that lack by drawing up 
two lists of the works of the flesh and of the Spirit 
respectively, that the one may repel by its hideousness, 

1 Chap. v. 1-4. 

2 More will be said on this text in a future chapter. 

3 Chap. v. 16. 



70 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

and the other draw by its winsomeness. How strange 
that the facts of human life should supply material for 
so tremendous a contrast ! Stranger still that it should 
be possible to find materials for the contrast within the 
religious world ! For the fruit of the Spirit : love, joy, 
peace, etc., is set over against the spiritual vices con- 
nected with the " carnality of religious contention," not 
less than against the coarser vices of the irreligious 
sensualist. It is easy to be a religious partisan, re- 
generation is not necessary for that ; the difficulty is to 
be a true Christian. 

The postscript 1 must not be passed over in silence. 
After the speech to Peter, it is the most characteristic 
thing in the Epistle. The letter has been written at 
white heat, dictated more rapidly than the amanuensis 
can write it down. The author reads it over, finds he 
has still something to say, writes it down himself, in 
large, bold, inelegant characters, unmistakable by any- 
one who has seen his handwriting before. The senti- 
ments are as unmistakably Pauline as the penmanship. 
Here is no elaborate reasoning, whether of the ex-Rabbi 
or of the theological doctor, but abrupt, impassioned, 
prophetic utterances of deepest convictions : the zealots 
for Judaism, hollow hypocrites ; the cross of Christ the 
sole worthy ground of glorying ; circumcision nothing, 
the new Christian creation in the individual and in the 
community everything; the men who adopt this for 
their motto, the true Israel of God, on whom may God's 
peace ever rest. 

i Chap. vi. 11-17. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 

In these Epistles the controversy between St. Paul 
and his opponents takes the form of an attack and a 
defence of his apostolic standing, and of his personal 
character in connection therewith. The advocates of a 
Judaistic Christianity do not seem to have made, in 
Corinth, any direct attempt to induce the members of the 
Church to submit to the rite of circumcision, or any other 
part of the Jewish law, probably for the simple reason 
that such an attempt in that centre of Greek life would 
have been futile. They appear to have confined their 
efforts in fostering a legal temper to questions of detail, 
such as the eating of meats offered to idols. Amid the 
Greeks of Corinth, with their liberal instincts, the anti- 
Paulinists would be obliged to pursue their end, the 
destruction of a free independent Christianity, by a cir- 
cuitous course. They could not, with hope of success, 
teach their own doctrines, but they might assail the man 
who taught doctrines of an opposite nature, might 
blacken his character, and plausibly deny, or cunningly 
undermine, his apostolic standing. The spirit of the 
people gave them a good chance of success in this bad 
line of action, for the Greeks in general, and the Corin- 

71 



72 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

thians in particular, were volatile, opinionative, addicted 
to party spirit, and to the faithlessness and heartlessness 
which that spirit usually engenders. 

There is very little bearing on the great controversy 
to be found in the First Epistle, which treats mainly of 
the multifarious disorders and irregularities of the 
Corinthian Church, the various questions of casuistry 
therein debated, relating to sacrificial meats, marriage, 
the dress and deportment of women, etc., and an eccen- 
tric opinion entertained by some concerning the resur- 
rection. Only a few slight hints occur here and there 
of the presence of a hostile element bent on under- 
mining the apostle's influence and authority, such as 
the reference to the parties into which the Church was 
divided, 1 the allusion to some who were puffed up 
because they thought the apostle was frightened to visit 
Corinth, 2 and the abrupt manner in which, in the ninth 
chapter, the writer, in interrogative form, asserts his 
apostolic dignity and privileges. 3 Were it not for the 
prominence given to the element of self-defence in the 
Second Epistle, one might even legitimately doubt 
whether these stray hints did really imply the existence 
in the Corinthian Church of a mischief-making Judaistic 
section ; but in view of the peculiar contents of the 
later Epistle, it seems proper to attach more significance 
to them than we should otherwise have done. It is, of 
course, quite conceivable that between the writing of 
the First Epistle and the date of the Second a new 
situation had emerged, that a party of legalists had in 
the interval arrived on the scene and created other 
1 1 Cor. i. 11, 12. - Ibid. iv. IS. 3 Ibid. ix. 1-6. 



THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 7S 

work for the apostle than that of correcting Corinthian 
abuses. Thus we might explain why there is so little 
in the First Epistle of that which constitutes the pecu- 
liarity of the Second. But the fact might be otherwise 
accounted for. It may be due in part to the circum- 
stance that in his First Epistle the apostle had so many 
urgent matters to write about, that the personal question 
was crowded out ; in part to his adversaries not having 
as yet found their opportunity, so that their presence in 
the Church might meantime be disregarded, or alluded 
to only in a distant manner. 

However it is to be explained, the fact certainly is, 
that the allusions to a hostile party in the First Epistle 
are very slight and vague. What is said concerning 
the divisions in the Church is far from clear. How 
many parties were there, and what were their respective 
characteristics? Baur reduces them to two, a Petrine 
and a Pauline, the other two being varieties of these, 
or the same party under a different name ; the Petrine 
party, e.g., calling itself now after Peter, the chief of 
the original apostles, now after Christ, to imply that in 
their view companionship with Jesus was an indispen- 
sable qualification for apostleship. 1 According to Hol- 
sten, those who called themselves after Christ were a 
distinct party, consisting of strangers who .had come 
into the Church, men who had personally followed 
Jesus, belonging indeed to the Seventy, therefore claim- 
ing the title of apostles. 2 It is assumed by both these 

1 Vide Paulas der Apostel, i. 291-8. 

2 Vide Das Evangelium des Paidus, pp. 196-232, where there is a 
very alle discussion of the question, Who were the Christ party ? 



74 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

writers that the divisions rested on a doctrinal basis, 
which, however, is denied by others, who think that 
they amounted to little more than personal preferences. 1 
The whole subject is enveloped in obscurity, but the 
probability is that there was a Judaistic leaven in the 
Corinthian Church even when the First Epistle was 
written, as it is certain there must have been at the 
date of the Second. 

On this view we can best understand 1 Cor. ix. 1-6, 
though that the apostle is on his defence is far from 
self-evident even in this passage, especially as it stands 
in the correct text, according to which the question, Am 
I not free ? comes before the question, Am I not an 
apostle? According to this reading the reference to 
the apostleship and its rights comes in simply as an 
illustration of the maxim previously laid down, that a 
Christian must sometimes deny himself the use of an 
undoubted liberty. The only thing that makes us 
suspect that the apostle has something more in his 
mind is the abruptness with which the reference to the 
apostleship comes in, and the strange emphasis with 
which the theme, once introduced, is insisted on. While 
ostensibly only illustrating a general doctrine concerning 
Christian liberty, he drags the apostleship into the dis- 
cussion as if desirous to speak of it for its own sake, 
and he makes statements regarding it which seem 
irrelevant to the previous connection of thought, in a 
tone that nothing going before accounts for. " Have I 

Holsten finds the proof of his view above stated, in 2 Cor. x.-xiii., 
the whole of which he regards as a polemic against this party. 
1 So Sabatier. 



THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 75 

not seen the Lord Jesus ? Are not ye my work in the 
Lord? If I be not an apostle to others, yet at least 
I am to you, for the seal of my apostleship are ye in the 
Lord." Why such questions and assertions, unless some 
were calling in question his claim to be an apostle ? 

Statements introduced in this in direct, passing manner 
could not satisfactorily dispose of the subject to which 
they referred. Nevertheless, in the light of the ampler 
treatment in the Second Epistle, one can discover in the 
ninth chapter of the First the leading points of St. 
Paul's apology for his assailed apostolic standing. I am 
an apostle, he says in effect, because (1) I have seen 
the Lord, 1 (2) I have been signally successful in my 
preaching, 2 (3) I have endured hardship in the cause. 
The hardship he has in view is the obligation imposed 
on him by the state of feeling in the Church to refuse 
support, and to work for his own livelihood. 3 Now 
when we pass to the Second Epistle, we find that what 
St. Paul there says on the same topic amounts simply 
to an expansion of these three arguments. 

In proceeding to consider the eloquent and triumph- 
ant apologetic of that Epistle, I begin by remarking that 
the whole defence rests on the general axiom that the 
qualifications for the Christian apostleship are spiritual, 
not technical. In this respect there is a close resem- 
blance between St. Paul's argument in defence of his 
apostolic standing and the argument of the author of 
the Epistle to the Hebrews, in defence of the priesthood 
of Christ. In both cases the presumption from a legal 
point of view was against the position defended. Christ 

1 1 Cor. ix. 1. 2 Ioia . ix. 2. 3 Ibic i ix# 7 _ 12 . 



76 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

possessed none of the legal qualifications for the priest- 
hood. In like manner St. Paul's qualification for the 
apostleship might well appear questionable. He had 
not been one of the companions of Jesus. On a prima 
facie view, that was a grave defect in his title ; for not 
to Judaistic prejudice alone, but to right reason it could 
not but appear important that the authoritative teachers 
of Christianity should be able to say from their own 
knowledge : " Thus spake and acted the Lord Jesus." 
It is indeed obvious that, as eye-witnesses of Christ's 
personal ministry, the Eleven were authorities in a sense 
in which St. Paul could not pretend to be authoritative. 
But how then does he vindicate his claim to rank with 
the Eleven as an apostle ? Let us see. 

1. His first line of defence is that lie has seen the Lord. 
" Have I not seen Jesus our Lord ? " asks he in the First 
Epistle, alluding primarily to the vision on the way to 
Damascus, but not to that alone, or perhaps even chiefly, 
as we can gather from various texts in the Second 
Epistle. He lays chief stress, in reality, on the vision 
of Jesus with the eye of the spirit, the insight he has 
gained into the true meaning of Christ's whole earthly 
history. Sufficient vouchers for this statement may be 
found in 2 Corinthians iii. 18 and iv. 6, which tell of 
the writer's unveiled view of the glory of the Lord, and 
of an inward illumination granted to him worthy to be 
compared to the illumination of the world when God 
uttered the creative fiat : " Let there be light." His 
contention, virtually, is that the vision of the spirit is 
more important than the vision of the bodily eye ; that 
indeed the latter without the former possesses no value. 



THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 77 

His tacit assumption is that the vision of the spirit is 
possible without the vision of the eye, and that there 
may be a vision of the eye unaccompanied by the vision 
of the spirit. If these positions be admitted, then there 
is no reason why a Paul should be behind the chiefest of 
the apostles. In matters of fact pertaining to the life of 
Jesus, their testimony, of course, possessed unique author- 
ity. But were they necessarily entitled to speak with 
exclusive or even superior authority as to the religious 
significance of the facts ? Their claim to be heard there 
would depend on the measure of their spiritual illumina- 
tion. But the question between St. Paul and his oppo- 
nents was precisely this : Who is the most authoritative 
and reliable interpreter of Christ's mind? It was not: 
Who is most likely to know the facts ? but, Who best 
understands the facts? And St. Paul's claim was that he 
possessed an understanding of the facts at least equal to 
that of the Eleven. And to that claim it would have 
been an utter irrelevance to have objected: Ah, but you 
never were a companion of the Lord like Cephas. It 
would have been an irrelevance of the same kind as it 
would be to say to a man of genius: "It is impossible you 
can be a great poet, for your father was not a man of 
wealth or of rank." It would have been to lay stress on 
what was at best a matter of prestige, in a spirit of vulgar 
worldliness ; in St. Paul's own words, to make knowledge 
of Jesus after the flesh 1 the one thing needful. It would 
have been, in short, to make the definition of apostleship 
turn upon something outward, in which case St. Paul 
could only make his opponents welcome to the name, 
1 2 Cor. v. 16. 



78 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

and claim for himself the substance — the right, viz., to 
come before the world as an independent interpreter of 
the Christian religion. 

But does St. Paul's argument not prove too much ? 
On naturalistic principles it certainly does. The scope 
of his argument, interpreted by naturalism is : " Every 
man an apostle who has spiritual insight, a Luther not 
less than a Paul. No man an absolute authority 
in matters of faith, not Paul any more than Luther, 
but each man authoritative according to the measure of 
his light." St. Paul did not mean to go this length. 
He regarded the apostles as exceptional characters, not 
merely in view of the measure of their inspiration, but 
because they were eye-witnesses of the resurrection. 
Hence the stress which he lays on the fact of having 
himself seen Jesus, not only in 1 Corinthians ix. but also 
in the fifteenth chapter of the same Epistle, where he 
enumerates the appearances of the risen Christ. He 
was not wrong in attaching importance to that fact in 
connection with the vindication of his apostleship. For 
no one who believed that the alleged appearance of 
Jesus to the persecutor on the way to Damascus was a 
reality, would be disposed to deny that its final cause 
was to convert a bitter enemy of the faith into a divinely 
commissioned preacher of it. Of course it was open to 
his opponents to deny the reality of his vision ; probably 
they did deny it, resolving the event into a purely sub- 
jective impression, as was done in later days in writings of 
intensely anti-Pauline bias like the Clementines. But 
they could not well admit the objectivity of the Chris- 
tophany, and deny the inference to apostolic vocation. 



THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 79 

2. The second line of defence is success in the work of 
the apostleship. St. Paul says much of his success as an 
apostle to the Gentiles, and that not merely by way of 
stating facts, still less in a spirit of idle boasting, but 
consciously and seriously in the way of argument and 
self-defence ; as if to say, " Providence has set its seal 
upon my ministry." He hints at this part of his apology 
in the First Epistle, as when he says to the Corinthians : 
" If to others I am not an apostle, yet at least I am to 
you, for the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord" ; 
and again, when he writes : " By the grace of God I am 
what I am ; and His grace which was bestowed upon me 
was not found vain, but I laboured more abundantly 
than they all." 1 But it is in the Second Epistle that he 
develops the argument so as to do it full justice. It is 
the main theme of the remarkable passage beginning at 
chapter ii. verse 14, and extending to the end of the 
third chapter. 2 The argument worthily opens with the 
words : " Now thanks be to God who causeth us ever to 
triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest by us the savour 
of His knowledge in every place." 3 They are in the 

1 1 Cor. ix. 2 ; xv. 10. 

2 We might even include in this section chap. iv. 1-6. 

3 2 Cor. ii. 14. The word dpLa^fievovTi has caused much trouble 
to interpreters. I retain the rendering of the A.V. as best suited to 
the connection of thought, though recent writers, while admitting 
its suitableness, reject it as contrary to usage. Vide, however, 
Schmiedel in II and- Commentar, who also adheres to the old view. 
That similar verbs are sometimes used in a factitive sense is not 
denied {e.g., fiaaCketieLv, 1 Sam. viii. 22, and /xadrjTeijcraTe in Matt, xxviii. 
19, the neuter form occurs in Matt, xxvii. 57) ; but it is contended 
that dpianPeveiv is never used in this sense, but only in the sense of 
triumphing over one, as in Col. ii. 15, the only other instance of its 
use in the New Testament. But the basis of induction is narrow, 



80 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

heroic style, and suggest the idea of a great victorious 
general receiving a triumphal entry into the city, in 
honour of his victories, followed by a train of captives 
marching towards their fate, some to deliverance and 
some to death. It looks like boasting, but it is boasting 
in self-defence ; therefore, though conscious, and frankly 
owning that he is using language of self-commendation, 
he yet boldly employs it ; and to make the argument 
from success more telling he gives it a personal turn by 
appealing to the effect of his work among the Corinthians 
themselves. " Are we beginning again to commend 
ourselves, or need we, as do certain persons, epistles of 
commendation to you or from you ? Ye are our epistle, 
written in our hearts, known and read by all men." * 
The certain persons referred to are of course legalist 
opponents, whose manner of action St. Paul loses no 
opportunity of contrasting with his own. They brought 
letters of introduction from influential men, coming 
not to preach the gospel, but to neutralise his in- 
fluence. He needed no such letters, at least among the 
Corinthians; the success of his labours, as evidenced 

and the question is just whether the connection does not justify us 
in finding an instance of the factitive use here. In any case we must 
think of St. Paul as sharing the triumph of God, not as triumphed 
over, as at least an incense-bearer, not as a captive (vide the transla- 
tion of the passage in The Scripture for Young Headers, 1892). I 
cannot close this note without referring to Professor Findlay's 
article on the word in The Expositor for December 1879, in which 
he ably contends for the Greek sense as distinct from the Roman, 
according to which the reference to is not a military triumph but to a 
sacred procession of enthusiastic worshippers led by the inspiring 
god. The stress, on this view, lies on the apostle's enthusiasm, not 
on his success. 
1 2 Cor. iii. 1, 2. 



THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 81 

by their renewed hearts, was all the commendation he 
required. 

The apostle would have the Corinthians carefully 
consider what this success meant, and takes pains in the 
sequel to make them understand its significance. It was, 
he tells them, a proof of sufficiency or fitness for the 
work. For when he asked, " Who is sufficient or fit for 
such a ministry ? " 1 he did not mean to suggest that no 
one was. He himself claimed to possess the necessary 
aptitude. He disclaimed only a sufficiency self -originated. 
He devoutly ascribed his sufficiency to God ; and just on 
that account he assigned to it very great significance, 
as revealing a divine purpose. When God fits a man for 
a work He calls him to the work, such is his argument. 
Drawn out in full his logic is to this effect : It is not an 
accident that a man succeeds in the work I have on 
hand. Success proves fitness, and fitness in turn proves 
divine vocation. 

One would like to know how St. Paul defined 
sufficiency. He has anticipated our wish and given a 
full satisfactory answer to our question. The gist of his 
answer is that sufficiency or fitness for Christian apostle- 
ship consists in insight into, and thorough sympathy with, 
the genius of the Christian religion. Thus the second 
line of defence runs up into the first ; brilliant success 
springing out of clear vision. The sentences in which 
the apostle gives practical proof of his insight and 
appreciation form one of the golden utterances of this 
Epistle. 2 It is the one passage in the two Epistles to 
the Corinthian Church kindred in its doctrinal drift to 
i 2 Cor. ii. 16. 2 Ibid. iii. 6-11. 

G 



82 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

the teaching of the Epistles to the Galatian and Roman 
Churches concerning the law. It is a two-edged sword 
which may be used either for defence of St. Paul's 
apostleship, or in defence of his conception of Chris- 
tianity. If his apostleship be admitted, then we have here 
an authoritative exposition of the nature of Christianity. 
If the correctness of the exposition be conceded, then it 
makes for St. Paul's apostleship, for he certainly possessed 
qualities fitting him in a peculiar degree to be the 
propagator of such a religion. The apostle's own mind 
seems to oscillate between the two lines of inference. 
At first the apologetic interest seems to be in the ascen- 
dant ; but when he has once entered on a description of 
the economy whereof he claims to be a fit minister, he 
forgets himself, and launches out into an enthusiastic 
eulogium of New Testament religion, as the religion of 
the spirit, of life, and of righteousness, as opposed to legal- 
ism, the religion of the letter, of death, and of condemna- 
tion, so giving us an utterance not merely serving a tem- 
porary apologetic purpose, but of permanent didactic 
value. Whatever impression it made on, the Corinthian 
Church, it leaves no doubt in our minds as to St. Paul's 
peculiar fitness to be an apostle of the Christian faith. 
Who so fit to propagate the religion of the spirit, of life, 
and of justification by faith, as the man who had by bitter 
experience proved legalism to be indeed a religion of 
condemnation and death, and to whom Christianity had 
come as a veritable year of jubilee, proclaiming liberty 
to the captives and the opening of prison doors to them 
that are bound? Of this experience, however, the 
apostle says nothing here, though doubtless he thinks of 



THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 83 

it as he writes. It suits his purpose rather to refer to 
another element of sufficiency, straightforward sincerity, 
standing in contrast as it does to the double dealing of 
his opponents. His argument now takes this turn : The 
religion of spirit and life, eternal because perfect, 1 has 
nothing to hide; the better it is known the more 
acceptable it will be ; it is only the religion of written 
rules, and legal bondage, and fear, that needs a veil to 
cover its inherent defects. I therefore am congenially 
outspoken, as becomes the servant of a religion, not of 
mystery, but of light, bright and glorious as the sun. I 
am not one of your huckstering merchants who adulterate 
their wares. 2 I convey the truth in Jesus, in its simplicity 
and purity, from land to land ; in this differing from my 
opponents, who mix gospel and law to the injury of their 
customers. Not only am I sincere, speaking nothing but 
the truth, but I am frank, speaking the whole truth, herein 
differing even from Moses, who put a veil on his face. 
At this point the apostle may appear to lapse into a 
Rabbinical way of thinking, but the thought wrapped up 
in his allegory of the veil is clear, and as precious as it 
is clear. The law did not announce its own transitori- 
ness ; it could not afford to do so. It had to practise 
reserve to uphold its authority. If it had said plainly, 
I am for a time, I am but a means to an end, it would 
have encouraged disrespect for its requirements. There- 
fore, just because it was a defective religion it had to be 
a religion of mystery. Christianity, on the other hand, 

1 2 Cor. iii. 11. 

2 Ibid. ii. 17 ; KaTrrfhetiovTes, another of St. Paul's strong graphic 
words in this context, found here only in the New Testament. 



84 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

needs no such veil ; the more plainly its ministers speak 
the better. The frank man is the fit man, the most 
successful, the God-appointed. 1 

3. But the treasure is in a fragile earthen vessel, and 
that may seem to detract from the fitness. Far from 
admitting that it does, however, St. Paul rather insists 
on the fact as a third argument in support of his claim 
to be an apostle. " I have," he says in effect, " earned 
the right to be regarded as the apostle of the Gentiles 
by manifold sufferings, endured in connection with my 
work." He has already used this argument in his Epistle 
to the Galatians, expressing it in these pathetic terms : 
" Henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear branded 
on my body the marks of Jesus." 2 The words, as 
Hausrath finely remarks, suggest the picture of an old 
general who bares his breast before his rebellious legions, 
and shows them the wound-prints which prove that he 
is not unworthy to be called their commander. 3 The 
apostle resumes the plea and urges it with great force 
and with much iteration, in the Epistle now under con- 
sideration, the passages in which it recurs rising to the 
dignity and grandeur of the greatest utterances to be 
found within the whole range of tragic poetry, and 
constituting together what might not unfitly be 
the " Pauline Iliad." The first of these impassioned out- 
bursts begins at chap. iv. ver. 7, and, running through a 
series of bold paradoxes, ends by comparing the life of 
the writer to a slow, cruel crucifixion, or to a continual 



i 2 Cor. iv. 7. 2 g aL vi> 17 . 

3 Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichtef vol. ii. p. 584. 




THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 85 

descent from the cross. 1 The apostle returns to the 
theme again in the sixth chapter, this time entering 
much more into detail. Appealing to the Corinthians to 
see to it that they receive not in vain the message of 
reconciliation so earnestly delivered by his lips, he backs 
up the appeal by a reference to those manifold sufferings 
which at once gave him a claim on their consideration, 
and commended him as a true apostle. 2 In a third 
passage of similar character, in the eleventh chapter, 3 he 
reaches the climax of his argument from tribulation, 
taking occasion there to mention some particulars in his 
history not elsewhere alluded to, one being that five 
times he had received from the Jews forty stripes save 
one. 4 He is not ashamed to mention such ignominious 
facts, he .rather glories in them, because they all tend 
to vindicate his claim to be the divinely-commissioned 
apostle of the Gentiles. It is even possible that in 
enduring such evil treatment at the hands of the Jews, 
he was glad to have an opportunity of bearing for 
Christ's sake what he had made others bear, as a sort 
of atonement for past sin. 

The chapter from which the last citation is made is 
one of four (chaps, x.-xiii.), which are distinguished 
from the rest of the Epistle by a bitterly controversial 
tone. The difference is so marked as to have suggested 
the idea that they originally formed a distinct letter, the 
very letter indeed referred to in 2 Cor. vii. 8, which is 

1 So Stanley (St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians'), who takes 
viKpwaiv to mean, not " dying" nor " death," but "deadness." " It is 
as if he had said, We are living corpses. It is a continual ' Descent 
from the Cross.' " 

2 2 Cor. vi. 5-10. 3 Ibid. xi. 23-33. . * Ibid. xi. 24. 



86 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

there spoken of as having by its severity deeply wounded 
the feelings of the Corinthian Church. The suggestion, 
though not without plausibility, is not hastily to be 
adopted. The diversity between the two parts of the 
Epistle can easily be reconciled with its unity by the 
supposition that in the earlier part the apostle had in 
his view mainly the faithful majority in the Corinthian 
Church who had supported his authority in the case of 
discipline, and were generally friendly to him, and that 
after he had written what he had to say to them in a 
tone of gentleness, he turned his thoughts to the minor- 
ity and the men by whose malign influence they had 
been misled, and dealt with them as they deserved, 
with a rod rather than in a spirit of meekness. 1 

These four chapters contain copious materials bearing 
on all the three branches of St. Paul's argument in 
defence of his apostleship. To the first head, the 
argument from insight, belongs chap. xii. 1-6, where he 
boasts of the visions and revelations he had enjoyed more 
than fourteen years previous to the date of the Epistle, 
that is about the time of his conversion. To the second 
head, the argument from success, belongs chapter x. 
12-18, where the apostle refers to the wide area over 
which his missionary labours had extended. It is notice- 
able that he emphasises the pioneering character of his 
work not less than its extent ; here again, as in so many 

1 Heinrici (Das zweite Sendschreiben des Apostel Paulus an die 
Korinthier, 1887) points out that if the Epistle had ended with the 
details about the collection for the poor in chap, ix., it would have 
been a fragment, and that chaps, x.-xiii. were necessary to explain 
and justify the hard judgments incidentally pronounced in the 
earlier chapters on the character of the Judaists. 






THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 87 

other connections, with an eye to the contrasted conduct 
of his opponents. They could point to no churches 
founded by their efforts, but only to churches already 
established which they had sought to disturb and corrupt 
by their sectarian animosities and legalist doctrines. He, 
on the other hand, had never entered on another man's 
province, taking up work already begun, either to further 
or to mar it, but had always broken new ground. Which 
of the two modes of action was most worthy of an apostle 
he would leave them to judge. To the third head, the 
argument from suffering, belong, over and above the 
passages already cited containing the long catalogues of 
woes — all the places in which Paul alludes to his refusal 
to receive from the Church of Corinth any contributions 
towards his maintenance. His adversaries appear to have 
put a sinister construction on this refusal, suggesting that 
it sprang from his not feeling quite sure of his ground. 
" He calls himself an apostle," so they seem to have 
argued, " why then does he not use his privilege as an 
apostle, and claim maintenance from his converts like the 
other apostles ? Evidently it is because he is afraid lest 
his pretensions should not be recognised." Thoroughly 
selfish themselves, these base-minded men could not so 
much as imagine the generous motives by which the 
apostle was really actuated. They took for granted 
that he would be glad to get money from all the Churches 
if he could. They even seem to have gone the length 
of insinuating that he did get it in a roundabout 
way ; that in fact that collection for the poor in Pales- 
tine, which he was always making such a fuss about, was 
merely a scheme for getting money into his own pocket 



ST. 



while pretending to be very independent. Such seems 
to be the plain sense of chap. xii. 16-18, the first 
sentence giving the substance of what St. Paul's enemies 
said of him, and some members of the Corinthian Church 
were base enough to believe. " He does not burden us 
with his maintenance ! no, not directly ; but he is craf t}% 
catches us with guile, in connection with that collection." 
Feeling keenly the humiliation of being obliged to 
answer such a charge, the apostle replies : " Did I make 
gain of you by any of them whom I sent unto you ? I 
asked Titus to go, and I sent with him the brother. Did 
Titus overreach you ? Walked we not in the same spirit, 
in the same steps?" The apostle's true motive in the 
whole matter of his support was a noble spirit of self- 
sacrifice, which, itself divine, was a sure mark that his 
mission was from God. The suggestion of his enemies, 
that if he were sure of his apostolic standing he would 
demand a maintenance, resembled Satan's suggestion to 
Jesus : if thou be the Son of God command that these 
stones be made bread. If thou be an apostle, said these 
children of Satan, command the churches to support thee. 
But the reasoning was as inconclusive in the one case 
as in the other. Jesus showed Himself to be the Son of 
God just by refusing to turn his Sonship to His own 
advantage. Paul showed himself to be an apostle of 
God by refusing with equal steadfastness to set his 
personal interests above the public interests of the Divine 
kingdom. Though he was an apostle he was willing to 
suffer in every way, and by that will to suffer for God's 
glory and man's good, he gave the most convincing 
evidence that he was a true apostle ; not one who 



THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 



89 



arrogated the dignity to himself, but called of God 
thereunto. 

In the foregoing statement we have been occupied 
exclusively with those parts of the two Epistles which 
bear on the question of the apostleship, and have met 
with little that throws light on St. Paul's conception 
of Christianity. The doctrinal element is indeed not 
abundant, even for one who is in quest of it. It is, 
however, not altogether wanting. Besides the important 
passage already referred to, exhibiting a contrast between 
the legal and the Christian dispensations, the Second 
Epistle contains two striking logia bearing on the signi- 
ficance of Christ's death. These are, " If one died for 
all, then all died," 1 and, " Him who knew not sin, He 
made sin on our behalf, that we might become the 
righteousness of God in Him." 2 These great Pauline 
words show two complementary aspects of the apostle's 
doctrine of the atonement. The First Epistle contains, 
in the eighth and fifteenth chapters, important contribu- 
tions to the doctrine of Christ's Person. 



1 2 Cor. v. 14. 



a Ibid. v. 21, 



CHAPTER V 

THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS — ITS AIM 

This Epistle is distinguished from those already consid- 
ered belonging to the same group by broadly marked char- 
acteristics. In the first place, it is more placid in tone. 
If it be indeed a contribution to the vindication of Paul's 
Gentile gospel against Judaism, it contains few traces 
of the controversial spirit. Polemic passes into calm 
didactic statement. Then, secondly, while the present 
Epistle contains much in common with the Epistle to 
the Galatians, we find that the same truths a*re set forth 
here in a more expanded and elaborate form. In the 
third place, to the old materials amplified, the Epistle 
adds a new phase of Pauline thought, in the important 
section in which an endeavour is made to reconcile the 
apostle's views of Christianity with the prerogatives of 
Israel as an elect people. This section, consisting of 
chapters ix.-xi., if not the most important, is at least the 
most distinctive part of the Epistle, presenting what has 
not inappropriately been called St. Paul's philosophy of 
history. 

It is natural to assume that these characteristics are 
due to the circumstances amidst which the Epistle was 
written. The historical spirit of modern exegesis does 

90 



THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS — ITS AIM 91 

not readily acquiesce in the view which, up till the time 
of Baur, had been almost universally accepted, that the 
Epistle to the Romans, unlike the Epistles to the 
Galatian and Corinthian Churches, is a purely didactic 
treatise on Christian theology, for which no other 
occasion need be sought than the desire of the writer 
to give a full connected statement of the faith as he 
conceived it. More and more it has been felt that such 
a production is hardly what we expect from an apostle, 
and that, however didactic or systematic it may appear, 
the Epistle in question must have been, not less than its 
companion Epistles, an occasional writing. 

There are indeed still those who lean to the old 
traditional opinion, and seek the initiative, not in any 
outward circumstances, whether of the Church at Rome, 
or of the Church generally, but solely in the apostle's 
mind, and in his wish to draw up an adequate statement 
of the Christian faith. Among these is Godet, certainly 
a most worthy representative of the class, in all whose 
commentaries one discovers that faculty of psychological 
divination which is the sure mark of exegetical genius, 
and whose exposition of Romans cannot be charged with 
the " oppressive monotony" 1 that has been complained 
of as characterising expository treatises on this Epistle 
written in the interest of dogmatic theology. Godet's 
idea is that St. Paul was in the habit of giving such 
developed teaching as we find in Romans to all the 
churches he had founded, and that he wrote an Epistle 

1 Mangold speaks of the druckende Monotonie of the dogmatic com- 
mentaries. Vide his Der Bomerbrief und die Anfdnge der Bomischen 
Gemeinde, p. 20 (1866). 



&2 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

to the Church in Rome simply in order to give, in a 
written form, to an important body of Christians with 
which he had not come into personal contact, the 
instruction which he had given viva voce to the churches 
in Ephesus, Thessalonica, Corinth, etc. 1 This is an as- 
sumption which readily suggests itself to minds familiar 
with theological systems, and accustomed to regard all 
the doctrines of an elaborate creed as essential elements 
of the faith. But the position is one which it is easier 
to assume than to prove. Godet offers no proof, but 
contents himself with referring to a work by Thiersch, 
published nearly fifty years ago, which, by mistake, he 
represents as having very solidly demonstrated the 
apostle's practice to have been as alleged. 2 The asser- 
tion that the Epistle to the Romans is only a sample of 
the writer's ordinary teaching stands very much in need 
of proof. The presumption is all the other way. The 
two Epistles to the Thessalonians, we have seen, supply 
evidence to the contrarj^, and the occasional character of 
the Epistles to the Galatians and the Corinthians, which 
contain more advanced teaching, justifies the inference 
that the Epistle to the Romans also is an occasional 
writing containing special instruction called for by ex- 
ceptional and urgent circumstances. To this it must be 
added that the whole notion of Godet and those who 
agree with him is not easily reconcilable with a just 

1 Commentaire sur Vepitre aux Romains, vol. i. pp. 122, 123. 

2 Commentaire, vol. i. p. 120. The work of Thiersch referred to is 
Versuch zur ■ Herstellung des historischen Standpunkts fur die Kritik 
der neutestamentlichen Schriften (1845). Thiersch distinctly states 
that the Epistle to the Romans was called forth by the controversy 
with the Judaists. Vide p. 235 of the above-named work. 



THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS — ITS AIM 93 

conception of the apostolic vocation and temper. An 
apostle is in spirit and mental habit a very different 
man from a systematic theologian. He deals in inspira- 
tions rather than in laborious theological reflection. He 
has neither the time nor the patience for system building. 
He may have in his mind many deep thoughts, but he 
keeps them till they are wanted. He utters his thoughts 
under constraint of urgent need. He speaks rather than 
writes, because speaking is more spontaneous than writ- 
ing ; and when he writes it is currente calamo, and under 
pressure of emergent demands. 

What the precise situation, in all its details, was, 
which the apostle had in view, when he wrote this 
Epistle, it may be difficult, or even impossible, to deter- 
mine. But of one thing it does seem possible to be 
assured, viz., that the Epistle belongs to the literature, 
and deals with a phase, of the Judaistic controversy. 
One could even tell d priori what phase it must be w^h 
which the last of the controversial group of Epistles 
is occupied. Already, the apostle has discussed two 
aspects of the great quarrel, those relating to the per- 
petual obligation of the Jewish law, and the qualifications 
for the apostleship. The one topic remaining to be taken 
up is the prerogative or primacy of Israel. Without 
doubt it must have its turn. It had its own proper 
place in the dialectics of the debate, and it may be taken 
for granted that a dispute so keen about matters so vital 
will not stop till it has run its natural course. The fire 
will burn till the fuel is exhausted. The rapid develop- 
ment of Gentile Christianity made it inevitable that the 
question should arise, What does the existing state 



94 st. 

of matters mean ? Gentiles are pouring in increasing 
numbers into the Church. Jews, with comparatively 
few exceptions, are holding aloof in sullen unbelief : are 
these facts to be construed as a cancelling of Israel's 
election ; or, if the election stands, does it not necessarily 
involve the illegitimacy of Gentile Christianity ? The 
question may have suggested itself to some of the more 
reflecting at the very commencement of the Gentile 
movement, and to St. Paul especially it may have been 
all along clear that it must come to the front ere long, 
but it could not become a burning question till conver- 
sions from heathendom had taken place on a great scale. 
The first effort of the Judaist would naturally be to. nip 
the new departure in the bud, by compelling Gentile 
converts to comply with Jewish customs. The next 
would be to cripple a movement which could not be 
crushed by disputing the apostolic standing and assailing 
the character of its leader. When both attempts had 
been rendered futile, by the triumphant progress of the 
movement in spite of all opposition, the only course open 
would be to enter a protest in the name of the elect 
people, and pronounce the evangelisation of the Gentiles 
a wrong done to Israel. 

It is to the temper which would enter such a protest, 
or to any extent sympathise with it, that the apostle 
addresses himself in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh 
chapters of the Epistle to the Romans. That this part 
of the Epistle at least has to do with the final phase of 
the Judaistic opposition to a free independent Chris- 
tianity I take to be self-evident. The only thing that 
may seem open to doubt is whether it was worth while 



THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS — ITS AIM 95 

taking any notice of the sullen mood of the men who 
were disaffected, and out of sympathy with the cause St. 
Paul had so much at heart. Could he not have afforded 
to treat it with contempt as utterly impotent? For 
what could the protesters do; what would they be at? 
They had no practicable programme to propose. Could 
they seriously wish the work of Gentile evangelisation to 
be stopped till the bulk of the Jewish people had been 
converted to the faith, insisting on the principle the Jew 
first, not merely in the sense that the Jew should get the 
first offer, but in the sense that all the world must wait 
till the Jews en masse accepted the offer ? If they had 
not the hardihood to make so absurd a demand, there 
was no course open to them but to accept the situation 
and reconcile themselves with the best grace possible to 
accomplished facts. 

Had St. Paul been a man of the world, he might have 
adopted the attitude of silent contempt. But being a 
man of truly Christlike spirit, he could not so treat any 
class of men bearing however unworthily the Christian 
name. He knew well that a disaffected party was none 
the less formidable that it was conscious of defeat, and 
had no outlook for the future ; that in such a case 
chronic alienation and ultimate separation were to be 
apprehended. He would do his utmost to prevent such 
a disaster. And it is obvious in what spirit such a 
delicate task must be gone about to have any chance 
of success. An irenical generous tone was indispensable. 
No bitter irritating words must be indulged in, but only 
such thoughts and language employed as tended to 
enlighten, soothe, and conciliate. The Epistle to the 



96 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

Romans fully meets these requirements by an entire 
absence of the controversial style. It has been custom- 
ary to explain this feature of the Epistle by the fact of 
its having been written to a Church with which Paul 
had no personal relations, and this may count for some- 
thing. But there is a deeper and a worthier reason for 
the contrast in tone between this Epistle and those 
written to the Galatian and Corinthian Churches. The 
whole situation is changed. Then Paul was fighting for 
existence with his back to the wall, now he writes as one 
conscious that the cause of Gentile Christianity is safe. 
Therefore, while careful to do justice to his convictions, 
he expresses himself throughout as one who can afford 
to be generous. Thus in chapters ix.-xi., while main- 
taining that God had the right to disinherit Israel (ix.), 
and that she had fully deserved such a doom (x.), he 
declares the disinheritance to be only temporary and 
remedial, and anticipates a time when Jew and Gentile 
shall be united by a common faith in Christ (xi.). Then 
he not only abstains personally from a tone of triumph 
in speaking of unbelieving Israel, but he earnestly 
warns the Gentile members of the Roman Church from 
indulging in a boastful spirit. 1 And the irenical tone, 
conspicuous in these three chapters, pervades the whole 
Epistle. In the first eight chapters stern things are 
said about Jewish moral shortcomings, and Judaism 
judged by its results is pronounced not less a failure 
than heathenism. 2 At the same time it is admitted 
that the Jewish people possessed eminent and valuable 
religious distinctions. 3 Similar is the treatment of the 
i Bom. xi. 16-21. 2 Ibid, iu a jbid. iii. 1, 2. 



THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS — ITS AIM 97 

Jewish law. While it is declared to be of no value for 
the attainment of righteousness, not less peremptorily 
than in the Epistle to the Galatians, its ethical worth is 
recognised with a frankness which we miss in the earlier 
Epistle. 1 

The situation as above described explains not only the 
calm, irenical, didactic tone of the Epistle, but also its 
broad comprehensive method. At first sight it seems as 
if it were top-heavy. If the writer's aim be to deal with 
a new Judaistic objection to Gentile Christianity, based 
on the prerogative of Israel, why not content himself 
with making the statement in chapters ix.-xi. ? To 
what purpose that elaborate argumentative exposition 
of the gospel as he understood it in the first eight 
chapters ? 

Baur's answer to this question was in effect that these 
eight chapters are an introduction to the next three, 
which form the proper kernel of the Epistle. 2 I do not 
accept this statement as altogether satisfactory, though 
I frankly own that I would rather regard the three 
chapters as the kernel, than relegate them to the sub- 
ordinate position assigned them by the dogmatic school 
of interpreters, that of a mere appendix. But the truth 
is that these famous chapters are neither kernel nor 
appendix, but an integral part of one great whole. 
They deal with a question of national privilege. But 
there is a previous question involved, that as to the 
claims of Christianity. For the position taken up by 
opponents virtually is, the rights of Israel versus the 
rights of universal Christianity. The proper antithesis 
1 Bom. vii. 12. * Paulus der Apostel, i.. 351* 



98 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

to that is, the rights of Christianity first, and Israel's 
rights only in the second place, and as far as compatible 
with the supreme interests of the true religion. The 
Epistle to the Romans is devoted to the advocacy of this 
position, the first eight chapters dealing with the larger, 
more general claims of Christianity, the next three deal- 
ing with the less important narrower question as to the 
real value of Israel's claim. Obviously both sections of 
the Epistle are essential to the purpose in hand. And 
that purpose guides the course of the apostle's thought 
throughout. In brief what he says is this : Christianity 
is in its nature a universal religion. It is needed by the 
world at large, by Gentiles and by Jews alike. For both 
heathenism and Judaism, judged by their practical 
results, are failures. Christianity is not a failure. It 
solves the problem aimed at by all religion ; brings men 
into blessed relations with God, and makes them really 
righteous. Christianity therefore must have free course ; 
no prescriptive rights can be allowed to stand in its way. 
As for the Jewish people I am heartily sorry for them. 
They are my countrymen, they are also God's people. 
But their right is not absolute, and they deserve to 
forfeit it. Yet I do not believe they are permanently 
doomed to forfeiture. God will continue to love them, 
and in the course of His beneficent providence will give 
effect to their claims in a way compatible with Christian 
universalism and with Gentile interests. 

Thus by a train of thought of which the foregoing is 
the gist, does the apostle storm the last stronghold of 
Judaists without ever mentioning their name. The 
absence of any allusion to Judaistic opponents in the 



THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS — ITS AIM 99 

Epistle has been adduced as a reason for calling in 
question its connection with the Judaistic controversy. 
The writer, we are told, betrays preoccupation in the 
treatment of his subject, but it is not relative to Judeo- 
Christians, or to Judaisers, but to the Jews and to Jew- 
ish incredulity. 1 As if the one reference excluded the 
other ! The only effective way to meet Judaistic antag- 
onism to Gentile Christianity in its final phase, was to 
form a just estimate of the true value of the pretensions 
of the Jewish people based on their national religion 
and their covenanted relation to God. It is in harmony 
with the irenical spirit of our Epistle that this is done 
without making the controversial reference manifest. 

But if Judaistic tendencies were the real though 
hidden foe, where were they to be found? Within 
the Church of Rome ; or without, and threatening to 
invade that Church, and work mischief there as else- 
where ; or merely in St. Paul's own mind, prompt to 
conceive new possible forms of antagonism, and restless 
till it had seen its way to intellectual victory over these, 
and found solutions of all religious problems arising out 
of the Pauline conception of Christianity? All three 
views have found influential advocates, and it is by no 
means easy to decide confidently between them. As to 
the last of the three, which has been adopted by Weiss, 2 
there is no objection to be taken to it on theoretical or 
a priori grounds. As I have already stated in the 
second chapter, I believe that St. Paul was his own 

1 So Oltramare, Commentaire sur Pepitre aux Bomains (1881), 
vol. i. p. 48. 

2 Vide his Introduction to the New Testament, vol. i. p. 306. 



100 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

severest critic, and that he did not need external 
antagonism to indicate to him the weak points of his 
religious theory, or to suggest the relative apologetic 
problems, and that when once these presented them- 
selves, both his reason and his conscience would im- 
periously demand solutions. Of these problems the 
last to suggest itself might well be that relating to 
Jewish prerogative, as it naturally arose out of the 
extensive development of Gentile Christianity. And 
it is not inconceivable that when the apostle had 
thought himself clear on this final apologetic topic, he 
might feel an impulse to reduce his thoughts to writing, 
and in doing so to work out in literary form his whole 
religious philosophy from that point of view, and so 
" bring as it were the spiritual product of the last years 
to his own consciousness." 1 Nor does it seem incredi- 
ble that he might send such a writing in epistolary 
form to the Roman Church without any urgent external 
occasion, simply because he deemed it fitting that a 
church presumably Gentile for the most part in its 
membership, and situated in the metropolis of the world, 
should be the recipient of a work containing a statement 
and defence of Christianity as a universal religion from 
the pen of its apostle. 

While recognising the legitimacy of the theory pro- 
pounded by Weiss, I can hardly regard it as probable, 
or as justified by any supposed impossibility of giving 
any other account of the matter. I doubt, in the first 
place, if the question discussed in chapters ix -xi. was 
so new to the apostle's mind as the theory implies. 1 
1 Weiss, Introduction, vol. i. p. 306. 



THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS ITS AIM 101 

rather incline to think that all the possible issues 
involved in the Judaistic controversy were clear to his 
view from an early period, and also the answers to all 
possible objections to his conception of Christianity. 
Then, on the other hand, I think that he would keep 
these answers to himself, till a need arose for com- 
municating them to others. One fails to see why he 
should trouble others with his thoughts on the compara- 
tively speculative topic of the prerogatives of Israel, if 
nobody was stirring the question. Why deal with a 
difficult problem like that, not vital to faith, before it 
had arisen ? At the very least St. Paul must have 
regarded it as possible that the question would be raised 
ere long in the church to which he sent the letter 
treating it. That this would happen was not only 
possible but probable. Assuming with Weiss, and the 
majority of recent writers on the Epistle, that the 
membership of the Roman Church was mainly of 
Gentile extraction, how natural that men connected 
with the Judaistic propagandism should regard with 
envy and chagrin a nourishing Christian community 
in the capital of the empire! How unwelcome to 
their mind these increasing signs that the stream of 
spiritual life was cutting out for itself a new channel, 
and leaving Palestine, formerly the centre of religious 
influence, high and dry! What more likely than that 
the impulse should arise in their hearts to make a last 
effort to recover lost power, and if possible win over to 
their side a church which, though Gentile, might not 
yet be decidedly Pauline? An attempt of this kind, 
however desperate, was by no means improbable. It 



102 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

might even have been in contemplation when the apostle 
wrote his Epistle, and as Weizsacker suggests, the fact 
coming to his knowledge may have been what deter- 
mined him to take that step as a means of frustrating 
by anticipation the sinister scheme. 1 

If the membership of the Roman Church was mainly 
of Jewish birth, the mischief would not need to be im- 
ported. What the actual fact was in the matter of 
nationality has since the days of Dr. Baur been a qucestio 
vexata for theologians. Baur himself was a strenuous 
advocate of the Jewish hypothesis, and through his 
influence, reinforced by that of Mangold, it became for 
a time the prevailing view. But the weighty interposi- 
tion of Weizsacker on behalf of the opposite hypothesis 
changed the current of opinion, and now it may be said 
to be the generally accepted theory that the Church of 
Rome, at the time our Epistle was written, was pre- 
dominantly Gentile. In absence of information from 
other sources as to the origin and composition of the 
church, disputants are obliged to rely on the general 
impression which the Epistle makes on their minds, and 
on individual texts and phrases. The advocates of 
either hypothesis are able to explain away to their own 
satisfaction the passages founded on by the champions of 
the opposite hypothesis. Thus, " all the nations among 
whom are ye," 2 seems beyond dispute to make for a 
Gentile constituency. But the supporter of the rival 
opinion contends that it suited the apostle's purpose in 
the connection of thought to include the Jews among the 
peoples to which his commission extended. In like 

1 Vide Das apostolische Zeitalter, p. 441. 2 Bom. i. 6. 



THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS ITS AIM 103 

manner the expression, "I speak to you that are 
Gentiles," 1 is disposed of by the remark that if the 
membership of the Church had been mainly Gentile, it 
would not have been necessary to state that he addressed 
himself to such. On the other hand, the pro-Jewish 
allusions are disposed of by patrons of the Gentile 
hypothesis with at least equal facility. " Abraham our 
father " 2 finds its parallel in the phrase " our fathers " 
occurring in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, 3 and "ye 
are become dead to the law through the body of Christ," 4 
might be said to Gentile believers in Rome with as much 
propriety as that God sent His Son " to redeem them 
that were under the law" to Gentile Christians in 
Galatia. 5 I do not mean to suggest, however, that the 
balance is even between the two parties. The weight of 
argument inclines to the Gentile side. While Isaythia 
I must acknowledge that my own mind is influenced not 
so much by particular texts, but rather by the general 
consideration that the hypothesis of a Gentile constitu- 
ency best fits in to the situation required by the Epistle. 
In that case the Roman Church becomes the proof and 
symbol of that triumph of Gentile Christianity which ex 
hypothesi is the occasion of the complaint wherewith the 
apostle feels called on to deal. 

It is important to observe that the determination of 
the question as to the nationality, of Roman Christians 
is in no way necessary to the understanding of the Epistle 
to the Roman Church. The one thing indispensable is 
to grasp firmly the fact that the Epistle was meant to 

*Bom. xi. 13. *Ibid. iv. 1. 3 1 Cor. x. 1. 

4 Bom. vii. 4. 5 Gal. iv. 4, 5. 



104 



deal with the final manifestation of Judaistic sentiment, 
the jealousy awakened by the progress of Gentile evan- 
gelisation. That is far more certain than either of the 
views as to the composition of the Church, as is shown 
by the fact that the advocates of both are at one as to 
the aim of the Epistle. Who the Roman Christians 
were may for ever remain doubtful ; but that jealousy for 
the prerogative of Israel existed when St. Paul wrote his 
Epistle to the Romans may be regarded as beyond 
doubt, and that the Roman Church was somehow con- 
nected with it may be inferred from the simple fact 
of the Epistle which handles the topic being addressed 
to it. 

Besides his chief aim in writing the Epistle the 
apostle might have other subordinate ends in view, and 
among these one arising out of his new mission plans 
doubtless had a place. To these plans he refers in 
chap. xv. 22-33. He had wound up one chapter of his 
mission history by the settlement of the Corinthian 
troubles. He was about to visit Jerusalem, carrying the 
gifts of the Gentile churches founded by himself to the 
poor saints of the holy city. That done, he will be 
ready and eager to break new ground, and to visit the 
regions of Western Europe, bearing to the nations the 
gospel of peace. For this new campaign Rome will 
form the natural base of operations. He must make the 
acquaintance of the Church there, and get her goodwill 
and cordial support in his new enterprise. In view of 
this great missionary project, our Epistle may be regarded 
as a pioneer, or preparer of the way ; a first step towards 
the execution of the contemplated operations. In the 



THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS — ITS AIM 105 

circumstances it was almost a matter of course that the 
apostle should write a letter of some sort to the Church 
in Rome. But something more than mission-schemes is 
needed to account for the actual character and contents 
of the letter he did write. Possibilities of misunder- 
standing due to sinister influences, threatening to appear 
or actually at work, must have been in his view. 

It is not an altogether idle fancy that in composing 
this remarkable letter the apostle's mind was influenced 
by the thought that he was writing to a church having 
its seat in Rome. His religious inspiration came from 
above, but it is permissible to suppose that his theological 
genius was stimulated by the image of the imperial city 
presenting itself to his susceptible imagination. The 
Epistle is truly imperial in style. It deals in large com- 
prehensive categories : Jew and Gentile, Greeks and 
barbarians, wise and unwise. It draws within the scope 
of its survey the whole human race, throughout the 
entire range of its religious history. It breathes the 
spirit of a truly imperial ambition. The writer aspires 
to the conquest of the world, and holds himself bound 
to preach the gospel to all nations for the obedience of 
faith, that Christ may become in the spiritual sphere 
what Csesar was in the political. And he is animated by 
a magnanimity becoming the ambassador of One whom 
he regards as by divine right and destiny the universal 
Lord. He believes in no unconquerable enmities or final 
alienations. He will have all men be saved, all peoples 
reconciled to God and to one another; Jew and Gentile, 
united in a common brotherhood, and living peaceably 
together under the benign rule of King Jesus. The leading 



106 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

aim of the Epistle, as we have seen, required the apostle 
so to write, and apart altogether from the exigencies of 
the situation, the grand style of thinking came natural 
to him. But the consciousness that his letter was going 
to Rome made it all the easier for a man of his kingly 
temper. Before the majesty of the greatest city in the 
world meaner natures might feel abashed. But St. Paul 
was not ashamed or afraid either to preach there or to 
send a letter thither. He could rise to the occasion, 
witness this magnificent Epistle ! 



CHAPTER VI 

THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS — THE TRAIN OF 
THOUGHT 

The theme of the first eight chapters is ' ' the gospel 
of God, ' ' for the whole world, needed by all men, avail- 
able for all who will receive it in the obedience of faith, 
and thoroughly efficient in the case of all who so receive 
it; a gospel which the apostle is not ashamed to preach 
anywhere, because he believes it to be the power of 
God unto salvation. 

The writer enters at once on the explanation of the 
nature of this gospel. " Therein is revealed a righteous- 
ness of God from faith to faith. ' ' 1 These words con- 
tain only a preliminary hint of St. Paul's doctrine con- 
cerning the gospel. He does not expect his readers to 
understand at once what he means by hucaioa-vvr) 6eov. 
He simply introduces the topic to provoke curiosity, 
and create a desire for a further unfolding, to be given 
in due season. Therefore it is better, with the Revised 
Version, to translate "a righteousness of God," than 
with the Authorised Version, "the righteousness of 
God ' ' ; for the idea the words are intended to express 
is by no means, for the first readers, a familiar theologi- 
cal commonplace, but a peculiar Pauline conception 

1 Bom. i. 17. 
107 



108 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

standing in need of careful explanation. Two things, 
however, are clearly indicated in this preliminary an- 
nouncement: that the gospel, as St. Paul understands 
it, is saving through faith, and that it is a universal gos- 
pel; " a power of God unto salvation to every one that 
believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." 

Having thus proclaimed the cardinal truth that sal- 
vation is through faith, the apostle proceeds to shut all 
men up to faith by demonstrating the universality of 
sin. 1 The section of the Epistle devoted to this purpose 
presents a grim, repulsive picture of human depravity, 
and on this account it may appear a most unwelcome 
and uncongenial feature in a writing having for its ex- 
press theme the praise of divine grace. But this dark 
unpleasant excursus is relevant and necessary to the 
argument in hand. What more directly fitted to com- 
mend the Pauline doctrine both as to the gracious nature 
and the universal destination of the gospel than a proof 
of the universal prevalence of sin ? If sin be universal, 
then God's grace seems the only open way to salvation, 
and no ground can be found in man why the way should 
not be equally open to all. There is no moral difference 
worth mentioning, all distinctions disappear in presence 
of the one all-embracing category, sinners. However 
disagreeable, therefore, it may be to have it elaborately 
proved that that category does embrace all, however un- 
pleasant reading the proof may be, however hideous and 
humiliating the picture held up to our view, we cannot 
quarrel with the apostle's logic, but must be content to 
take the bitter with the sweet, the dark with the bright. 
1 Bom. i. 18 ; ii. 24. 



EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS TRAIN OF THOUGHT 109 

Far from being a blot on the Epistle, this sin-section, as 
we may call it, is one of its merits, when regarded as an 
attempt at a fuller statement of St. Paul's conception 
of the gospel than any supplied in previous Epistles. 
We miss such a section in the Epistle to the Galatians. 
Hints of a doctrine of sin are indeed not wanting in that 
Epistle, 1 but in comparison with the elaborate state- 
ment in the Epistle to the Romans they are very scanty, 
and give hardly an idea of what might be said on the 
subject. For what we have here is not vague gentle 
allusions, but a tremendous exhaustive indictment which 
overwhelms us with shame, and crushes our pride into 
the dust, the one effect being produced by the descrip- 
tion of Gentile sinfulness in chap. i. vers. 18-32, the 
other by the description of Jewish sinfulness in the two 
following chapters. 

Remarkable in the former of these two delineations 
is the exact knowledge displayed by the apostle of the 
hideous depravity of Pagan morals, and also the un- 
shrinking way in which he speaks of it, not hesitating 
out of false delicacy to allude to the most abominable 
of Gentile vices, and to call them by their true names. 
All who know the Greek and Roman literature of the 
period are aware that the picture here given of con- 
temporary Paganism, in respect both of religion and 
morals, is absolutely faithful to fact. Never perhaps 
in the history of the world did mankind sink so low 
in superstition and immorality as in the apostolic age; 
and it was fitting that the ajDostle of the Gentiles 
should say what he thought of it in an Epistle to the 
1 Gal. ii. 15, 16 ; iii. 10, 19. 



110 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

Romans, for in the city of Rome, the folly and wicked- 
ness of mankind reached their maximum. " The first 
age, ' ' writes Renan, ' ' of our era has an infernal stamp 
which belongs to it alone; the age of Borgia alone can 
be compared to it in point of wickedness." 2 Surely it 
could not be difficult for men immersed in such a foul 
pit of senile superstition and unblushing profligacy to 
attain such a sense of guilt as should make them feel 
that their only hope of salvation lay in the mercy of 
God! But, alas, men get accustomed to evil, and are 
apt to regard all as right that is in fashion. A moral 
tonic is needed to invigorate conscience, and produce a 
healthy reaction of the moral sense against prevalent 
evil. This the apostle understood well, hence the 
abrupt reference to the wrath of God immediately after 
the initial statement of the nature of the gospel. 2 
Here, as in reference to the whole sin-section, one's 
first impression is apt to be: how ungenial, what a 
lack of tact in thrusting in such unwelcome thoughts 
in connection with the good tidings of salvation! But 
the writer knows what he is about, and his usual tact 
is not likely to have deserted him at the very outset of 
so carefully considered a writing. He knows that his 
gospel will be welcomed only by those to whom the 
prevalent life of the age appears utterly black and 
abominable. The first thing therefore to be done is to 
call forth the slumbering conscience into vigorous action. 
For this purpose he prefaces his description of Pagan 

1 Melanges, p. 167. 

2 Bom. i. 18. The idea of a revelation of wrath will be discussed 
at a later stage. 



EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS — TRAIN OF THOUGHT 111 

manners by a blunt downright expression of his own 
moral judgment upon them, pronouncing them to be the 
legitimate object of divine wrath. 

In his indictment against the Gentile world, St. Paul 
has no difficulty in making out a case, his only difficulty 
is in making the picture black enough. But when he 
passes from Gentiles to Jews, his task becomes more 
delicate. He has now to deal with a people accustomed 
to speak of Gentiles as "sinners," and to think of 
themselves by comparison as righteous, and who could 
read such a description of Pagan morals as he has just 
given with self-complacent satisfaction. Therefore he 
makes this very state of mind his starting-point in 
addressing himself to his countrymen, and begins his 
demonstration of Jewish sinfulness by a statement 
amounting to a charge of hypocrisy. In effect he says : 
44 1 know what you are thinking, O ye Jews, as ye read 
these damning sentences about Pagans. 4 Oh, ' think 
ye, 4 these wicked Gentiles! thank God, we are not like 
them.' But, I tell you, you are like them, in the 
essentials of conduct if not in special details, and to all 
this you add the sin of hypocritical censoriousness, 
judging others while you ought rather to be judging 
yourselves.' ' It is noticeable that, though plainly alluded 
to, the Jew is not named. The reason may be that 
the apostle wishes absolutely to deny the right of any 
man to judge others; as if he would say: 44 The heathen 
are bad, but where is the man who has a right to cast 
stones at his brother man ? ' ' He knows very well 
where the men who claim such a right are to be found. 
He does not at first say where, but it goes without 



112 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

being said, every Jew reading the Epistle would know, 
for he would be conscious that he had just been doing 
the thing condemned. Having denounced the Jewish 
vice of judging, Paul goes on by a series of interroga- 
tions to charge Jews with the same sins previously 
laid to the charge of the Gentiles. 1 These implied 
assertions may seem a libel on a people proud of their 
God-given law; but doubtless the apostle was well 
informed as to the state of Jewish morality, and spoke 
as one conscious that he had no reason to fear con- 
tradiction. 

It is important to notice that St. Paul's purpose in 
this sin-section is not simply to prove that both Pagans 
and Jews are great sinners, but to show that they are 
such sinners in spite of all in their respective religions 
that tended to keep them in the right way. He pro- 
nounces a verdict not merely on men but on systems, 
and means to suggest that both Paganism and Judaism 
are failures. He holds that even Paganism contained 
some elements of truth making for right conduct. He 
credits the Gentiles with some natural knowledge of 
God and of duty. 2 His charge against them is that 
they held or held down 3 the truth in unrighteousness, 
and were unwilling to retain God in their knowledge. 
It may be thought that this judgment of the Pagan 
world is too pessimistic, and that there was a brighter 
side to the picture which is not sufficiently taken into 
account. But in any case it is to be observed that 
the pessimism of the author does not take the form of 

1 Bom. ii. 21-23. 2 Ibid. i. 19-21 ; ii. 14, 15. 

3 Ibid. i. 18, KaTexdvTwv. 



EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS TRAIN OF THOUGHT 113 

denying that the Pagans had any light, but rather that of 
accusing them of not being faithful to the light they had. 

To the Jew the apostle concedes a still higher meas- 
ure of light, representing him as having the great 
advantage over the Pagan of being in possession of the 
oracles of God. 1 But he is far from thinking that in 
this fact the Jew has any ground for assuming airs of 
superiority as compared with the Gentile. He alludes 
to the privilege with no intention of playing the part 
of a special pleader for his race. 2 On the contrary, he 
holds that the people who were in possession of the 
law and the promises and the Scriptures were just on 
that account the more to be blamed for their mis- 
conduct. For the benefit of such as made these 
privileges a ground of self-complacency, he points out 
that the very Scriptures of which they were so proud 
brought against the favoured race charges not less 
severe than he had just brought against the Pagan 
world. 3 

The apostle concludes his sombre survey of the moral 
condition of the world with a solemn statement, declar- 
ing justification by works of law impossible. 4 It is the 
negative side of his doctrine of justification based on 
his doctrine of sin. It applies in the first place and 
directly to Jews, but by implication and a fortiori to 
Gentiles. 

1 Bom. iii. 1, 2. 

2 Ibid. iii. 9. Such seems to be the meaning of irpoex^/xeda, "are 
we making excuses for ourselves ? " that is, for the people who had 
the \6yia rod deov. Vide the elaborate discussion on this word in 
Morison's monograph on Bomans iii. 

3 Ibid. iii. 10-18. * Ibid. iii. 20. 



114 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

Having reached the negative conclusion, the apostle 
proceeds to state his positive doctrine of salvation in 
one of the great passages of the Epistle, chap. iii. 
21-26, which must occupy our attention hereafter. 
Here let it be remarked that we get from this great 
Pauline text more light on the expression Ave met with 
at the commencement — "a righteousness of God. ' ' We 
now begin to understand what this righteousness is, 
which the apostle regards as the burthen of his gospel. 
He evidently feels that the expression in itself does not 
necessarily convey the meaning he attaches to it, for no 
sooner has he used it than he hastens to add words 
explanatory of his meaning. "By a righteousness of 
God, ' ' he says in effect, 4 ' I mean a righteousness through 
faith of Christ, unto all believers in Christ." God's 
righteousness, in St. Paul's sense, does not appear to 
signify God's personal righteousness, or our personal 
righteousness conceived of as well pleasing to God, but 
a righteousness which God gives to those who believe 
in Jesus; an objective righteousness we may call it, not 
in us, but as it were hovering over us. It seems to be 
something original the apostle has in mind, for he 
labours to express his thought about it by a variety 
of phrases: saying, e.g., that it is a righteousness apart 
from law, and yet a righteousness witnessed to both by 
law and by prophets, how or where, he does not here 
state. Further, he represents it as given to faith. 
Faith is its sole condition, therefore it is given to all 
who believe, Jew and Gentile alike. Again he speaks 
of men as made partakers of God's righteousness, Slkcliov- 
fievoi, " justified," fre ely, by his grace, which is as much 



EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS — TRAIN OF THOUGHT 115 

as to say that the righteousness in question is a gift 
of divine love offered freely to all who believe in Jesus. 

Apart from law this righteousness of God is revealed, 
according to the apostle, who lays great stress on the 
doctrine, as he feels that otherwise God and salvation 
would be a monopoly of the Jews. 1 Yet one cannot 
but note that he is very careful in this Epistle to 
avoid creating the impression that he undervalues law. 
Significant in this connection is the twice-used expres- 
sion "the obedience of faith," 2 also the curious phrase 
the ' ' law of faith, " 3 by which boasting is said to be 
excluded; also the earnestness with which the apostle 
protests that by his doctrine he does not make void the 
law through faith, but rather establishes the law. 4 The 
proof of the statement is held over for a more advanced 
stage of the argument, as is also the proof of the thesis 
that by the law is the knowledge of sin. 5 The point to 
be noticed is the apostle's anxiety to prevent the rise 
of any prejudicial misunderstanding. It is explained 
in part by the irenical policy demanded by the situation 
in view of the writer, in part possibly by his recollect- 
ing that he writes to men who as Romans had an in- 
bred reverence for law. 

What follows in chapters iv. and v. may be summa- 
rised under the general heading of support to the doc- 
trine of justification by faith. The support is threefold, 

1 Bom. iii. 29. 2 Ibid. i. 5 ; xvi. 26. 

3 Ibid. iii. 27. Compare the expression vo/jlos rod irveifxaros rijs 
fai}s (chap. viii. 2). These various expressions seem to indicate a 
desire to dissociate the idea of law from legalism, and to invest it 
with evangelic associations. 

4 Bom. iii. 31. 5 Ibid. iii. 20. 



116 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

being drawn (1) from the history of Abraham (chap, 
iv.); (2) from the experience of the justified (chap. v. 
1-11) ; (3) from the history of the human race (chap, 
v. 12-21). The first two lines of thought are antici- 
pated in G-alatians (chap. iii. 6-9, 3-5), the third is 
new, though texts in 1 Cor. xv., concerning Adam and 
Christ, show that such sweeping generalisations do not 
occur here for the first time to the apostle's mind. 

4 ' What of Abraham our forefather ? " 1 so begins 
abruptly the new section. Is he no exception to the rule, 
that no man is justified by works ? The Jews thought 
he was, and the apostle seems willing to concede the 
point out of respect to the patriarch, but not in a sense 
incompatible with his thesis. 2 Abraham as t compared 
with other men might have in his works a ground of 
boasting, but not before God, not so as to exclude need 
of divine grace, not in the sense of a full legal justifica- 
tion. He was justified before circumcision, and by faith; 
and so he was not merely the fleshly father of Israel, but 
the spiritual father of all who believe, circumcised and 
uncircumcised. In the discussion of these points, there 
comes out in a remarkable degree a feature of St. Paul's 
style on which critics have commented, viz. , the tendency 
to repeat a word that has taken a strong hold of his 
mind. "A word," says Renan, "haunts him, he uses 
it again and again in the same page. It is not from 

1 1 Cor. iv. 1, e-uprjictvai is omitted by Westcott and Hort. 

2 So Lipsius, Die Paul. Bechtfertigungslehre, p. 35, with which cf. 
the same author in Hand - Commentar. According to Weber, Die 
Lehre des Talmuds, p. 224, the Jews of the Talmudic period thought 
that all the patriarchs passed through life without sin, also other 
great saints, such as Elijah. 



EPISTLE TO THE EOMANS — TRAIN OF THOUGHT 117 

sterility, it is from the eagerness of his spirit, and his 
complete indifference as to the correction of style." 1 
The word which haunts his mind here is \oyi£b/-tat, 
which in one form or another occurs eleven times. 
The repetition implies emphasis, implies that the word 
is the symbol of an important idea in the Pauline system 
of thought, that it denotes a certain feature of the 
righteousness of God given to faith. It is an imputed 
righteousness, though strictly speaking St. Paul's idea 
is that faith is imputed for righteousness. So it was in 
the case of Abraham, according to the Scriptures; so in 
like manner, the apostle teaches, shall it be in the case 
of all Abraham's spiritual children. 2 For he regards 
the patriarch's case as in all respects typical, even in 
respect of the nature and manifestations of the faith 
exercised, as when he believed in God's power to quicken 
the dead, even as we do when we believe in the resur- 
rection of Jesus. 3 " Who," adds the apostle, in one of 
his pregnant sentences, ' 4 Who was delivered up for our 
trespasses, and was raised again for our justification." 4 
The way of justification by faith exemplified in the 
history of Abraham, is, the apostle goes on to show, still 
further commended by its results in a believing man's 
experience. The style at this point passes out of the 
didactic into the emotional. The writer expresses him- 
self as one who has known what it is to enter into a 
state of peace, hope, and joy, from a miserable state of 
fear, doubt, uncertainty, and depression, the sad inheri- 

1 St. Paul, p. 233. 2 Bom. iv. 24. 3 Ibid. iv. 24. 

4 Ibid. iv. 25. This text will come under our notice in chapter 
viii. 



118 st. patjl's conception of Christianity 

tance of legalism. So in cheerful buoyant tone he 
begins : ' ; Justification being by faith, let us have peace 
with God, ' ' x insisting that it is now possible and easy 
as it never was or could be for the legalist. And he 
continues in triumphant strain to exhibit the mood of 
the believer in Jesus as one of constant many-sided 
exultation. The keynote of this noble outpouring of an 
emancipated heart is Kavx&pai, occurring first in ver. 2, 
and recurring in vers. 3 and 11, and presenting in its 
growing intensity of meaning a veritable Jacob's ladder 
of joy reaching from earth to heaven. " We exult in 
hope of future glory; not only so, we exult in present 
tribulations; not only so, we exult in God. The future 
is ours, the present is ours, all is ours because God is 
ours; all this because we have abandoned the way of 
works and entered on the way of faith." Such is the 
skeleton of thought in this choice passage, well hidden 
by a massive body of superadded ideas crowding into 
the writer's mind and craving utterance. 

The famous parallel between Adam and Christ comes 
in partly as an afterthought by way of an additional 
contribution to the doctrine of sin, and therefore to the 
argument in support of the doctrine of justification. 
But it may also be viewed as a continuation of the 
foregoing strain in which Christian optimism finds for 
itself new pabulum in a larger field. "It is well not 
only for the individual believer that salvation comes 
through faith in Christ, but for the human race. Christ 
is the hope of all generations of mankind. Through one 

1 Bom. v. 1, exw/xev suits the emotional character of the passage. 
In didactic meaning it comes to the same thing as exop-ev. 



EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS — TRAIN OF THOUGHT 119 

man at the commencement of history came sin and death, 
and through this second Man came righteousness and 
life. The law did nothing to help sin and death-stricken 
humanity, it rather entered that sin might abound, so 
enhancing rather than mitigating its malign power. 
But that was merely a temporary evil, for the abounding 
of sin only called forth a superabundant manifestation 
of grace. Thus Adam and Moses, each in his own way, 
ministered to the glory of Christ as the Redeemer from 
sin." Such is the gist of the passage. 

The apostle's thought is grand, bold, and true, but 
like all bold thought it brings its own risks of misunder- 
standing. What if this eulogium on the righteousness of 
God given to faith, or on the grace of God the more lib- 
erally bestowed the more it is needed, should be turned 
into an excuse for moral licence ? Why then Christian- 
ity would prove to be a failure not less than Paganism 
and Judaism; nay, the greatest, most tragic failure of 
all. St. Paul has judged Paganism and Judaism by 
their practical fruits, and he cannot object to the same 
test being applied to the new religion he proposes to 
put in their place. Obviously it must be a matter of 
life and death for him to show that the gospel he 
preaches will stand the test. That, accordingly, is the 
task lie next undertakes, with what success the con- 
tents of chapters vi.-viii. enable us to judge. 

Chapters vi. and vii. deal successively with three 
questions naturally arising out of the previous train of 
thought. It is not necessary to suppose that they had 
ever been put by any actual objector — the dialectics are 
those of the writer's own eager intellect; but conceived 



120 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

as emanating from an unsympathetic reader they may 
be stated thus: The great matter, it seems, is that grace 
abound; had we not better then all play Adam's part 
that grace may have free scope ? 1 The law too was 
given to make sin abound, and having rendered that 
questionable service retired from the stage and gave 
place to the genial reign of grace. Are we then at 
liberty now to do deeds contrary to the law ? 2 Finally, 
if the function of the law was to increase sin, is not the 
natural inference that the law itself is sin ? 3 The 
apostle's reply to the first of these questions is in effect 
this:" Continue in sin that grace may abound! the idea 
is abhorrent to the Christian mind; the case supposed 
absurd and impossible. Ideally viewed, a Christian is 
a man dead to sin and alive in and with Christ. That 
this is so, baptism signifies. The Christian life in its 
ideal is a repetition of Christ's life in its main crises; in 
its death for sin and to sin, and in its resurrection to 
eternal life. And the ideal becomes a law to all believers. 
They deem it their duty to strive to realise the ideal in 
their life." At this point in the development of St. 
Paul's thoughts we make the acquaintance of that 
' 4 faith-mysticism ' ' which is a not less conspicuous feature 
of Paulinism than the doctrine of objective righteousness, 
or justification by faith. We met it before for a moment 
in the Antioch remonstrance, in those stirring words, "I 
am crucified along with Christ " ; 4 and again, just for 
a passing moment, in the pregnant saying: "If one 
died for all, then all died along with Him. " 5 But here 

1 Mom. vi. 1. 2 Ibid. vi. 15. 3 Ibid. vii. 7. 

* Gal. ii. 20. 5 2 Cor. v. 15. 



EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS — TRAIN OF THOUGHT 121 

we are brought face to face with it so that we cannot 
escape noting its features, and are compelled to recognise 
it as an organic and essential element in the Pauline 
conception of Christianity. 

The second suggestion, that we may sin because we 
are not under law, the apostle boldly meets by the 
assertion that just because we are not under law but 
under grace therefore sin shall not have dominion over 
us. The announcement of this to a Jew startling, but 
to a Christian self-evident, truth conducts the apostle 
at length to his doctrine as to the function of the law 
which he has once and again hinted at in the course of 
his argument. He uses for his purpose the figure of a 
marriage. The law was once our husband, but he is 
dead and we are married to another, even Christ, through 
whom we bring forth fruit to God; very different fruit 
from that brought forth under the law's influence, which 
was simply fruit of sin unto death. 1 In so characterising 
the fruit of marriage to the law, the apostle is simply 
repeating his doctrine that the laAV entered that sin 
might abound. This doctrine, therefore, he must now 
explain and defend, which he does in one of the most 
remarkable passages in all his writings, wherein he 
describes the conflict between the flesh and the spirit 
and the function of the law in provoking sin, while holy 
in itself, through the flesh. 2 It is the locus classicus of 
St. Paul's doctrine of the flesh as also of his doctrine of 
the law, and as such must engage our attention hereafter. 
It is altogether a very sombre and depressing utterance, 

1 Bom. vii. 1-6. 2 Ibid. vii. 7-24. 



122 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

ending with the cry of despair : ' 4 Wretched man, who 
shall deliver me ! " 

The exposition of the gospel cannot so end. To let 
that be the last word were to confess failure. The 
exclamation : ' 4 Thanks to God through Jesus Christ ' ' 
must be made the starting-point of a neAv strain in which 
despair shall give place to hope, and struggle to victory. 
This is what happens in chapter viii. The apostle here 
returns to the happy mood of chapter v. 1-11. " There 
is now no condemnation " is an echo of " Being justified 
by faith, we have peace," and the subsequent series of 
reflections is an expansion of the three ideas, rejoicing in 
hope, rejoicing in tribulation, rejoicing in God. Yet 
along with similarity goes notable difference due to the 
influence of the intervening train of thought. In the 
earlier place the ground of joy and hope is objective, the 
righteousness of God given to faith, faith imputed for 
righteousness. In the latter it is subjective, union to 
Christ by faith, being in Christ, having Christ's Spirit 
dwelling in us. The great Pauline doctrine of the Spirit 
immanent in believers as the source of a new Christlike 
life here finds adequate expression, after having been 
hinted in the Epistle to the Galatians, 1 and also in an 
earlier place of this present Epistle. 2 Here the indwell- 
ing Spirit is set forth as the source of several important 
spiritual benefits — (1) victory over sin, power to do the 
will of God, to fulfil the righteousness of the law 3 (the 
law is not to be made void after all, but established!); 
(2) filial confidence towards God; 4 (3) the sure hope of 

1 Gal. iv. 6 ; v. 5. 2 Bom. v. 5. 

3 Ibid. viii. 4-10. 4 Ibid. viii. 14-16. 



EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS — TRAIN OF THOUGHT 123 

future glory as God's sons and heirs; 1 (4) comfort under 
present tribulation, the spirit helping us in our infirmi- 
ties. 2 Along with this doctrine of the immanent Spirit 
goes a magnificent doctrine of Christian optimism which 
proclaims the approach of an era of emancipation for the 
whole creation, and the present reign of a paternal Provi- 
dence which makes all things work together for good. 3 
Here St. Paul's spirit rises to the highest pitch of 
jubilant utterance, illustrating what he meant when he 
spoke of glorying in God (chap. v. 11), " If God be for 
us, who can be against us. ... I am persuaded 
that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principal- 
ities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to 
come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, 
shall be able to separate us from the love of God which 
is in Jesus Christ our Lord." 4 

Thus, on eagle wing does the apostle soar away 
towards heaven, whence he looks down with contempt 
on time and sense, and all the troubles of this life. But 
such lofty flights of faith and hope seldom last long in 
this world. Something ever occurs to bring the spirit 
down from heaven to earth, back from the glorious 
future to the sad present. Even such was St. Paul's 
experience in writing this letter. What brings his 
thoughts down to the earth, and back to the disen- 
chanting realities of the present is the prevailing unbelief 

1 Bom. viii. 17. 2 Ibid. viii. 26. 3 Ibid. viii. 18-25, 31-39. 

4 Ibid. viii. 31, 39. In this brief analysis of chapter viii. no 
reference has been made to a very important Pauline word in vers. 
3, 4 : " God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and 
for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." Other opportunities will occur 
for discussing this passage. 



124 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

of his countrymen. In the peace-giving faith and in- 
spiring hope of Christians few of them had a share. 
The sad fact not only grieved his spirit, but raised an 
important apologetic problem. The nature of the pro- 
blem has been indicated in a previous chapter, as also 
the gist of the apostle's solution as given in Romans 
ix.-xi., the further exposition of which is reserved for 
another place. 



CHAPTER VII 



THE DOCTKINE OF SIN 



The topical consideration of Paulinism on which we now 
enter may fitly begin with St. Paul's negative doctrine 
concerning justification, viz., that it is not attainable 
by the method of legalism. The proof of this position 
resolves itself practically into the Pauline doctrine of 
sin, which embraces four particulars. These are (1) the 
statement concerning the general prevalence of sin in the 
" sin-section " of the Epistle to the Romans ; (2) the 
statement respecting the effect of the first man's sin in 
Romans v. 12-21 ; (3) the statement concerning the 
sinful proclivity of the flesh in Romans vii. ; (4) the 
statement concerning the action of the law on the sinful 
proclivity of the flesh in the same chapter. From all 
these taken together it follows that salvation by the 
works of the law is absolutely impossible. 1 

1. The apostle's first argument in support of his 
doctrine of justification on its negative side is that as 
a matter of fact and observation sin, even in intense 

1 Menegoz truly remarks that to understand St. Paul's notion of 
sin we must remember that it is not his purpose to give a systematic 
course of instruction on sin, but simply to speak of it in its bearing 
on his doctrine of justification. Le Peche et la Redemption, p. 23. 

125 



126 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

virulence, is widely prevalent in the world, both among 
Pagans and among Jews. It may be called the popular 
argument, and its use is to produce a prima facie im- 
pression or presumption in favour of the doctrine in 
connection with which the appeal to experience is made. 
It cannot be regarded as a strict proof that justification 
by works is impossible ; at most it amounts to a proof 
that salvation by that method is very unlikely. To that 
it certainly does amount, very conspicuously in the case 
of the Jews. If, as is alleged, the people to whom had 
been given the law were as sinful as the rest of the 
world, the obvious inference is that the legal dispensa- 
tion, viewed as a means of attaining unto righteousness, 
had proved a signal failure. And in view of the dark 
picture of the world generally, without distinction of 
Jew or Gentile, it is clear that, whatever might be 
possible for the exceptional few, the way of legal right- 
eousness could never be the way of salvation for the 
million. But the empirical argument does not exclude 
the possibility of that way being open for the few; for 
though gross sin be very generally prevalent, it does not 
follow that such sin, or even sin in any degree, is 
absolutely universal. There may be some exceptionally 
good men capable of perfectly satisfying the law's re- 
quirements. The apostle makes it quite evident that 
he does not believe in any exceptions, for he winds up 
the account of the moral condition of the world in the 
early chapters of Romans with the unqualified statement: 
" Therefore by the works of the law shall no flesh be 
justified." 1 But that he does not rest the inference 
1 Bom. iii. 20. 



THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 127 

solely on the foregoing statement concerning the ex- 
tensive prevalence of sin appears from the appended 
remark : " For by the law is the knowledge of sin," 
which is a new reason for the assertion just made. It 
may be doubted whether the apostle rests his doctrine 
as to the absolute universality of sin even on the texts 
of Scripture he has previously cited, 1 which on the surface 
seem to teach the doctrine, though as they stand in the 
Old Testament they are not intended to state an abstract 
doctrine concerning human depravity, but simply charac- 
terise in strong terms the moral depravity of a particular 
generation of men. That he put on these texts a 
universal construction is not questioned, but he may 
have done so not so much as a mere interpreter of 
Scripture, but rather as one who believed in the universal 
diffusion of sin on other grounds. That the possibility 
of exceptions was present to his thoughts is evident 
from his reference to the case of Abraham. 2 We may 
expect therefore to find that he has in reserve some 
deeper, more cogent reasons for his thesis than either 
an appeal to observation or citations from the Hebrew 
Psalter. 

2. The necessary supplement to the popular argument 
is to be found in the famous passage concerning Adam 
and Christ, and in the not less notable statement con- 
cerning the sinful proclivity of the flesh. As to the 
former I remark that this section of Romans (v. 12-21) 
contains much more than a contribution to the Pauline 
doctrine of sin, or to the proof of the negative doctrine 
of justification. It serves the comprehensive purpose of 
1 Bom. iii. 10-18. 2 /^. iv . 1. 



128 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

vindicating the apostle's whole doctrine of justification, 
both on its negative and on its positive side, by fitting 
it into a grand philosophic generalisation respecting the 
religious history of the world. That history is there 
summed up under two representative men, the first man 
and the second, Adam and Christ. Between these two 
men St. Paul draws a parallel in so far as both by their 
action influenced their whole race. But beginning with 
a parallel, he forthwith glides into a contrast. Apology 
passes over into eulogy. For the writer, at the com- 
mencement of the chapter, has been extolling the benefits 
connected with the era of grace, and he is in the mood 
to continue in the same strain, and so having once sug- 
gested the thought : Adam and Christ like each other 
as both representative men to opposite effects, he intro- 
duces the new theme : " but not as the offence is the 
free gift ; sin abounds, but grace superabounds." 1 

What we are now concerned with, however, is the 
bearing of this passage on the doctrine of sin, and so on 
the negative side of the doctrine of justification. That 
it was meant to have a bearing on these topics we need 
not doubt, though the direct purpose in view is more 
general and comprehensive. It may be said that the 
apostle here supplies a supplementary proof of the 
impossibility of attaining unto salvation by personal 
righteousness, a proof which converts his first statement 
concerning the general prevalence of sin into an abso- 
lutely universal doctrine as to the sinfulness of man. 

And what then is the new proof? It starts from 
the universal prevalence of death. Indubitably death 
1 Bom. v. 15. 



THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 129 

reigns over all. But death, it is assumed, is the wages 
of sin ; there had been no death among men had there 
been no sin ; therefore all must be in some sense and 
to some extent sinners simply because all die. Not 
improbably this was the original germ of the train of 
thought contained in the Adam-Christ section. But 
this germinal thought would inevitably suggest others. 
It would in the first place start a difficulty to be over- 
come, in grappling with which the apostle at last reached 
the magnificent generalisation contained in the antithesis 
between the two representative men. Death has swept 
away all the generations of mankind, therefore all men 
in all generations have sinned. But if so, men must 
have sinned before the giving of the law. But how 
could that be if where there is no law there is no trans- 
gression, and if by the law comes the knowledge of sin ? 
This difficulty might be met by saying : there was a law 
before the lawgiving, a law written on the hearts or 
consciences of men, and sufficiently known to make them 
responsible. But this is not the way in which the 
apostle meets the difficulty, though, as we know from 
other places in his Epistles, such a line of thought was 
familiar to him. He is willing to make the concession 
that there was no law before the Sinaitic lawgiving, and 
that therefore men could not legally be treated as sinners, 
could not have sin imputed to them as a ground of 
condemnation and infliction of penalty, because he has 
in view another way of showing that in all the ages men 
were under the reign of sin, and therefore subject to 
death. That way he finds in the great principle of 
solidarity, or the moral unity of mankind- The first 



130 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

man sinned, and that is enough. By one man sin entered 
into the world, and death followed in its track legiti- 
mately, righteously, because when the one man sinned 
all sinned. 

Such I take to be the meaning of the famous text 
Romans v. 12, and in particular of the last clause: £<j> w 
7rdvT6<; rjfjLaprov. The rendering of the Vulgate, in quo 
omnes peccaverunt, is grammatically Avrong, for e'<£' w does 
not mean "in whom," but "because," yet essentially 
right. It requires some courage to express this opinion, 
or indeed any opinion, when one thinks of the intermin- 
able controversies to which these four Greek words have 
given rise, and considers how much depends on the 
interpretation we adopt. The sense of responsibility 
would be altogether crushing if the matter in dispute, 
instead of being a statement connected with a theological 
theorem, were a vital article of the Christian faith. Of 
the possible meanings of the words in question, the one 
for which I, with something like fear and trembling, 
give my vote, is, it must be admitted, d priori the least 
likely. Who would ever think of saying himself, or 
expect another to say, that when Adam sinned all man- 
kind sinned? But we know that St. Paul is in the 
habit of saying startling things, the sinless One made 
sin, e.g., and therefore we cannot make it a rule of inter- 
pretation, in dealing with his writings, that the most 
obvious and ordinary meaning is to be preferred. Of 
course the most obvious meaning of the second half of 
Romans v. 12 is that death passed upon all men because 
all men personally sinned, which accordingly is the inter- 
pretation favoured by an imposing array of modern 



THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 131 

expositors. Among the objections that might be stated 
to this view, not the least weighty is this, that it makes 
St. Paul say what is not true to the fact. If he really 
meant to say that all died because all personally sinned, 
he must have forgotten the very large number of human 
beings who die in infancy, an act of forgetfulness very 
unlikely in so humane a man and so considerate a 
theologian. The infants would not be left out of account 
if we adopted the interpretation which has on its side 
the great name of Calvin : all died, because all, even the 
infants, inherited a depraved nature, and so were tainted 
with the vice of original sin, if not guilty of actual 
transgression. But this is not exegesis, but rather read- 
ing into the word rj/juaprov a theological hypothesis. We 
seem, therefore, to be thrown back, in spite of ourselves, 
on the thought, however strange it may seem, that when 
Adam sinned all mankind sinned, as that which the 
apostle really intended to utter. The aorist, r/fiaprov, as 
pointing to a single act performed at a definite time, fits 
into, if it do not compel, this interpretation. Writing 
some years ago, one would have been able to cite in 
support of it the authority of Pfleiderer. In the first 
edition of his able work on Paulinism he remarks that 
in Romans v. 12 two different reasons seem to be given 
for the entrance of death — Adam's sin and men's own 
sin, and it may seem strange that no attempt should be 
made to reconcile the two. But he goes on to say : 
" Just in this hard and completely unreconciled juxta- 
position of the two reasons lies without doubt the hint 
that in the apostle's view they are not two, but one, that 
therefore the sinful deed of Adam is at the same time 



132 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

and as such the sinful deed of all." " This," he continues, 
" naturally must mean that in the deed of Adam, as the 
representative head of the race, the race in virtue of a 
certain moral or mystic identity took part." 2 But in 
the second edition of this work, published in 1890, the 
author has, with an implicit faith which is almost pathetic, 
adopted as his guide in the interpretation of Paulinism 
Weber's account of the theology of the Talmud. In 
doing so he makes two great assumptions: that the 
theological opinions of the Jews in the time of St. Paul 
were the same as in the period, centuries later, when the 
Talmud was compiled, and that St. Paul's theology was 
to a large extent simply a reflection of that of the 
Jewish synagogue. Both assumptions seem to me very 
hazardous. It stands to reason that Jewish theological 
thought underwent development in the centuries that 
elapsed between the apostolic age and the Talmudic era. 
And it is by no means a matter of course that every 
theological theorem current in the synagogue, and as 
such familiar to Saul the Pharisee, was adopted into his 
system of Christian thought by Paul the apostle. That 
Rabbinism exercised a certain influence on his mind 
need not be questioned. The influence is traceable in 
his method of interpreting Scripture and in his style of 
argumentation, and it is not at all unlikely that it may 
here and there be discernible also in the thought-forms 
and phraseology of his Christian theology. 2 But of one 

1 Der Paulinismus, pp. 39, 40. 

2 Lipsius (Hand- Commentar on Bom. v. 12) points out that the idea 
of death entering into the world through the sin of the first man 
was generally current among the Jews before and during Paul's 
time, citing in proof Sirach xxv. 24, Wisdom of Solomon ii. 23, and 



THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 133 

thing we may be sure, viz., that St. Paul was not the 
slave of Rabbinical theology, and that he would never 
allow it to dominate over his mind to the prejudice of 
his Christianity. He might use it as far as it served his 
purpose, but beyond that he would not suffer it to go. 
The view he expresses in Romans iv. 1-3 in reference 
to Abraham, as no exception to the thesis that men 
cannot be justified by works, illustrates the freedom of 
his attitude towards Jewish opinion. 

The servile use of Talmudic theology as a key to the 
interpretation of Paulinism, which makes the new edition 
of Pfleiderer's work in some respects the reverse of an 
improvement on the first, suggests another reflection 
which may here find a place. It is a mistake to be 
constantly on the outlook for sources of Pauline thought 
in previous or contemporary literature. Pfleiderer is a 
great offender here. According to him one part of St. 
Paul's theology comes from Alexandria and the other 
from the Jewish synagogue, and the original element, if 
it exist at all, is reduced to a minimum. He cannot 
even credit the apostle with the power to describe the 
vices of Paganism as he does in Romans i. without 
borrowing from the Book of Wisdom. 1 I may find 
another opportunity of expressing an opinion as to the 
alleged Hellenism ; meantime I content myself with 
cordially endorsing a sentiment occurring in a book by 
a young German theologian, of whom Pfleiderer speaks 
in most appreciative terms. It is that " the theology of 

iv. , Esdras vii. 18-20. What St. Paul did was not to invent the idea, 
but to apply it in exposition and defence of the Christian faith. 
1 Der Paulinismus, 2te Aufi. pp. 83, 84. 



134 st. paul's conception of christianitf 

the great apostle is the expression of his experience, not 
of his reading." 1 The remark applies even to the Old 
Testament, much more to the Apocrypha, or to the 
works of Philo, or to the dreary lucubrations of the 
scribes. 

The doctrine of the Talmud on the connection between 
sin and death, as stated by Weber, is to this effect. 
Adam's sin is his own, not the sin of the race. Every 
man dies for his own sin. Yet the death of all men 
has its last ground in the sin of Adam, partly because 
the death sentence was pronounced on the race in con- 
nection with Adam's sin, partly because through Adam's 
sin the evil proclivity latent in the flesh not only first 
found expression, but was started on a sinister career of 
increasingly corrupt influence. Assuming that the 
apostle meant to echo the Talmudic theory in the text 
under consideration, the resulting interpretation would 
be something like a combination of two of the three inter- 
pretations which divide the suffrages of Christian com- 
mentators. Summarily these are : all die because of 
personal sin, all die because of inherited depravity, 
all die because involved in the personal sin of Adam the 
representative of the race. The Talmudic hypothesis is 
a combination of the first and second of these three views. 

In the famous comparison between Adam and Christ 
the terms dfjuaprla and 8i/caiocrvvr} appear both to be 
used objectively. Sin and righteousness are conceived of 
as two great antagonistic forces fighting against each 
other, not so much in man as over him, each striving for 
supremacy ; the one manifesting its malign sway in 
1 Gunkel, Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes, p. 86 (1888). 



THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 135 

death, the other in the life communicated to those who 
believe in Jesus. The one power began its reign with 
the sin of Adam. From the day that Adam sinned 
ajxapTLa had dominion over the human race, and showed 
the reality of its power by the death which overtook 
successive generations of mankind. The existence of 
this objective sin necessitated the coming into existence 
of an objective righteousness as the only means by which 
the reign of sin and death could be brought to an end. 
The existence of an Adam through whom the race was 
brought into a state of condemnation, made it necessary 
that there should appear a Second Adam in whom the 
race might make a new beginning, and in whose right- 
eousness it might be righteous. As by the disobedience 
of the one man the many were constituted ^KareardOycrav, 
v. 19) sinners, so also it was necessary that by the obedi- 
ence of the One the many should be constituted right- 
eous. Such seems to be the apostle's view. It may 
raise scruples in the modern mind on various grounds. 
Some may think that St. Paul has read far more theol- 
ogy into the story of the fall than can be taken out of 
it by legitimate exegesis. The idea of objective sin 
may appear objectionable on ethical grounds ; for what, 
it may be asked, can be more unjust or unreasonable 
than that one man should suffer for another man's 
sins ? Yet modern science will teach even the freest 
theological thinker to be cautious in pressing this 
objection ; for by its doctrine of heredity it has made it 
more manifest than ever that the solidarity of mankind 
is a great fact, and not merely a theological theory, and 
that the only question is as to the best way of stating 



136 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

it so as to conserve all moral interests. It may readily 
be admitted that a better statement is conceivable than 
that furnished by Augustinian theology. The question 
may very legitimately be raised: To what effect or extent 
does objective sin reign ; in other words, what is meant 
by death in this connection ? When St. Paul says, " so 
death passed upon all men," does he allude to the famil- 
iar fact of physical dissolution, or is death to be taken 
comprehensively as including at once temporal, spiritual, 
and eternal consequences ? If my conjecture as to the 
genesis of the Adam-Christ train of thought be correct, 
we must understand Oavaros in the restricted sense. 1 
In any case there is no ground for ascribing to St. Paul 
the dogma that the eternal destiny of men depends on 

1 Lipsius in Hand- Gommentar zum N. T. maintains that ddvaros 
nowhere in St. Paul's writings means spiritual death, but physical 
death without hope of resurrection. Vide his notes on Bomans v. 12 
and vii. 10. Similarly Kabisch, Die Eschatologie des Paulus (1893). 
The views of Menegoz will be stated in the next chapter. In 
referring to the work of Kabisch I must acknowledge that the 
weight of his authority is much lessened by what I cannot but 
regard as the extravagant manner in which he fathers upon St. Paul 
all the grossly materialistic conceptions of the Apocalyptic writings 
and the Talmud. Nothing but perusal of the work will give one any 
idea of the extent to which this is carried. Take as a sample his 
account of the fall in its origin, and its effects on human nature 
and on physical nature: "The Satanic substance through the me- 
dium of Eve (through sexual intercourse) entered into the flesh of 
the first man ; there it blazed up, kindled by the divine command, 
and excited him to commit the first sin ; as a poison it seized his 
body, not the ecrw dvOpw-rros which has nothing to do with these 
physical events, and changed him into a <ru>p.a tt)s dp-aprlas or a 
a-w/xa t6v 9av&Tov, and as $dpp.a.Kov 6\£dpov has penetrated into all 
made of the same material as himself, into the whole Kocrp-os and 
made it a home of corruption and death," p. 168. The apostle is 
represented as regarding all sins, even "spiritual" sins, as purely 



THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 137 

the sin of the race apart from personal trangression} 
That through the sin of Adam eternal perdition over- 
takes children dying in infancy (unless averted by 
baptism !) formed no part of his theology. The idea 
is utterly irreconcilable with his optimistic doctrine of 
superabounding grace. It is excluded by his conception 
of objective sin and objective righteousness as forming 
two aspects of one system. He did not think of the 
former as reigning unconditionally. He thought rather 
of the fall and its consequences as counterworked from 
the first by the reign of grace, Adam nowhere where 
Christ was not also in more or less potency ; the curse 
therefore in all spheres, physical and ethical, to a large 
extent an unrealised ideal, because never operative 
unchecked by a redemptive economy. This covers 
infant salvation ; for if infants perish, the common sin 
reigns unchecked and the common righteousness is con- 
victed of impotence. 2 

3. Something more than the theorem of objective sin 

physical functions of the material body, p. 151. The influences of 
the Holy Spirit or of Christ are conceived of in the same materialistic 
manner. The book altogether is an extreme example of the "rigour 
and vigour " of German theorists. 

1 To understand Paulinism we must carefully note the distinc- 
tion between dp-apria and wapd^aa-ts. dpiaprta is objective and com- 
mon ; irapdf3a(7Ls is subjective and personal, dfiapria entails some 
evil effects, but irapd^aais is necessary to guilt and final condem- 
nation. 

2 Vide on this Christ in Modern Theology, by Principal Fairbairn, 
pp. 460-2 ; also Godet, who on Bom. v. 12 remarks : There is no 
question here about the eternal lot of individuals. Paul is speaking 
here above all of physical death. Nothing of all that passes in the 
domain in which we have Adam for our father can be decisive for 
our eternal lot. The solidarity of individuals with the head of the 
first humanity does not extend beyond the domain of natural life. 



138 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

in the sense explained is needed to produce the con- 
viction that sin is a universal reality. It must be 
shown that sin is a power at work in man as well as 
above him, influencing his character as well as his 
destiny. Till this is shown men may remain unper- 
suaded that righteousness is unattainable by the way 
of legalism, deeming objective sin either an unreality or 
at most something external, affecting man's physical life, 
but not his moral being or his standing before God. To 
shut men up to the way of faith there is needed a 
demonstration of the inherent sinfulness of human 
nature. This demonstration the apostle supplies in 
his statement as to the sinful proclivity of the flesh. 
The relative section of the Epistle to the Romans is 
not indeed a formal contribution to the doctrine as to 
the universality of sin ; it rather deals with the flesh 
as a hindrance to Christian holiness, under which aspect 
it will fall to be considered hereafter. It may seem 
unsatisfactory that so important a part of the doctrine 
of sin should be brought in as a sort of afterthought. 
But we must once for all reconcile ourselves to the fact 
that St. Paul is not a scholastic theologian, and be con- 
tent to take his teaching as he chooses to give it. 

The demonstration takes the form of a personal con- 
fession. In the first part of his doctrine of sin the 
apostle has described in dark colours the sins of other 
men ; in this part he details his own experience in most 
graphic terms. " I am carnal, sold under sin, for what 
I do I know not ; for not what I wish do I, but what 
I hate, this do I." 2 And he assumes that in this respect 
1 Bom. vii. 14, 15. 



THE DOCTRINE OF Sltf 139 

he is not exceptional. Personal in form, the confession 
is really the confession of humanity, of every man who 
is aapKivo^}- living in the flesh. The ego that speaks is 
not the individual ego of St. Paul, but the ego of the 
human race. It is idle therefore to inquire whether he 
refers to the period antecedent to his conversion or to 
the post-conversion period. The question proceeds upon 
a too literal and prosaic view of the passage, as if it 
were a piece of exact biography instead of being a 
highly idealised representation of human weakness in 
the moral sphere. In so far as the artist draws from 
his own experience the reference must be held to be 
chiefly to the pre-conversion period, for it is clear from 
the next chapter that the apostle is far from regarding 
the moral condition of the Christian as one of weakness 
and misery like that depicted in chap. vii. ; though it 
need not therefore be denied that the conflict between 
flesh and spirit may reappear even in the life of one 
who walks in the Spirit. But we miss the didactic 
significance of this passage if we take it as merely 
biographical, instead of viewing it as typical and repre- 
sentative. That it is meant to be typical is manifest 
from the abstract manner in which the flesh is spoken of. 
It is not St. Paul's flesh that is at fault, it is the flesh, 
the flesh which all men wear, the flesh in which dwells 
sin. 2 What precisely the apostle means by adp% is a 
question for future consideration ; meantime the point 



1 This is the approved reading. Adjectives terminating in vos 
indicate the material of which anything is made. Vide 2 Cor. iii. 3, 
Kapdiais crapKlvais. 

2 Bom. vii. 25 : viii. 3. 



140 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

to be noted is that the word does not denote something 
merely personal. It represents an abstract idea. The 
term may not signify the mere physical organisation, but 
we may safely assume that it has some reference thereto, 
and so find in this notable passage the doctrine that in 
man's material part resides a bias to sin which causes 
much trouble to the spirit, and prevents those who with 
their mind approve the law of God from actually com- 
plying with its behests. This doctrine St. Paul proclaims 
in the pathetic confession : " I know that in me, that is 
in my flesh, dwelleth not good." : What dwells in the 
flesh is not good but sin. 2 " I know," says the apostle, 
expecting every man who has any sympathy with good 
to echo the acknowledgment. If he be right in this 
expectation, then it is all over with the hope of attain- 
ing to righteousness by personal effort. The appropriate 
sequel of such a confession is the groan of despair : 
" Wretched human being, who shall deliver me." 3 If 
there be any hope for us, it must be in Another ; out- 
standing ground must be grace not law. " But," it may 
be said, "St. Paul may be wrong in his judgment ; he may 
be taking too morbid a view of the moral disability 
of man." Well, it is a jury question ; but, inspiration 
apart, I had rather take the testimony of St. Paul on 
this question than that of a morally commonplace, self- 
complacent person like the Pharisee of our Lord's para- 
ble. It is a fact that the noblest men in all ages have 
accepted his verdict, and this consensus of those most 
capable of judging must be held to settle the matter. 

1 Bom. vii. 18. 2 Ibid. vii. 20. 

3 Ibid. vii. 24. Ta.\alirwpos iyw dvdpcoiros. 



THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 141 

Granting the matter of fact to be as asserted, viz., 
that there is in the flesh a bias towards evil, what is its 
cause ? Is the bias inherent in the flesh, inseparable 
from the nature of a material organism, or is it a vice 
which has been accidentally introduced into it, say by 
the sin of Adam? On this speculative problem St. Paul 
has nowhere in his Epistles pronounced a definite opinion. 
He declares the fact of an antagonism between flesh 
and spirit, but he gives no account of its origin. It 
may indeed seem possible to arrive at a solution of the 
problem which may reasonably be held to be Pauline by 
combining the statement in the Adam-Christ section 
with that of the section concerning the flesh, and draw- 
ing the inference that human nature, and in particular 
the bodily organism, underwent a change for the worse 
in consequence of the sin of the first man. This is the 
Church doctrine of original sin. A question has been 
raised as to the legitimacj^ of the combination on which 
this doctrine rests. 1 This question very naturally leads 
up to another : does the combination go to the root of 
the matter ? From the sin of the first man came the 
corruption of human nature, but whence came his sin ? 

1 In the first edition of Der Paulinismus Pfleiderer pronounced 
the combination inadmissible, and maintained that St. Paul gives two 
wholly different accounts of the origin of moral evil in Bom. v. 
and vii., that in the latter chapter being that sin has its origin in a 
flesh conceived to be inherently evil. Vide p. 62. In the second 
edition he regards it as possible that the Augustinian theory that 
the sinful bias of the flesh originated in Adam's fall was held by 
St. Paul, but thinks it more likely that he accepted the view of the 
Jewish schools, viz., that the evil bias was there from the first, and 
was only provoked and increased through the temptation to sin. 
Vide p. 71 ; and for the Jewish view, Weber, sects. 46, 48. 



142 st. paul's conception of Christianity. 

Was his flesh entirely free from evil bias, morally 
neutral, and containing no elements of danger to the 
spirit ? Or had it too that in it — ■ desire, passion — 
which might very readily tempt to transgression ? If 
the Pauline literature contains any hints of an answer to 
this question, they are to be found in the terms in which 
in 1 Cor. xv., the first man is described as in contrast 
to the second, only a living soul, psychical as distinct 
from spiritual, and of the earth, earthy. 1 These 
expressions seem to point in the direction of a nature 
not very different from our own, and altogether suggest 
an idea of the primitive state of man not quite answer- 
ing to the theological conception of original righteous- 
ness. The same remark applies to the account of that 
state in the Book of Genesis, wherein the first man 
appears in such a condition of unstable moral equi- 
librium as to fall before the slightest temptation, more 
like an innocent inexperienced child than a full-grown 
man, godlike in " righteousness and true holiness." 
Should a revision of the Church's doctrine concerning 
the initial moral condition of man be necessitated by 
the progress of modern science, it may be found that it 
is not the sacred historian or the Christian apostle that 
is at fault, but the dogmatically-biassed exegesis of the 
system-builders. 2 

1 1 Cor. xv. 46, 47. 

2 F. W. Robertson says that popular ideas of the paradise state 
are without the warrant of one syllable of Scripture. Vide Lectures 
on the Epistles to the Corinthians, apud 1 Cor. xv. 46, 47. Godet 
also on the same text remarks that St. Paul does not share the 
traditional orthodox idea of the primitive state as one of moral and 
physical perfection. 



THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 143 

4. The last particular in the Pauline doctrine of sin 
is the statement concerning the effect of the law's action 
on the sinful proclivity of the flesh. On this point the 
apostle teaches that in consequence of the evil bias 
of the flesh, the law, so far from being the way to 
righteousness, is rather simply a source of the know- 
ledge of sin and an irritant to sin. The topic is handled 
chiefly in Romans vii. It is introduced at ver. 7 by 
the question : " What shall we say, then ? Is the law 
sin ? God forbid " ; which is followed up by the 
explanatory statement that the law, though not sin, is 
the source of the knowledge of sin. This is explained in 
turn by the doctrine of the sinful bias of the flesh, in 
consequence of which it comes to pass that the law, 
in commanding the good, as it always does, being itself 
holy, simply comes into collision with contrary inclina- 
tion, and so awakes the consciousness of a law in the 
members warring against the law in the mind. So by 
the law I simply know myself to be a sinner, to be 
morally impotent, to be a slave- To make one righteous 
is because of the flesh impossible for the law, a truth 
which the apostle states very forcibly in Bom. viii. 3, 
where he represents the fulfilment of the righteousness 
of the law in men as the impossible for the law in con- 
sequence of its weakness by reason of the flesh. Such 
being the fact, made known to him by bitter experience, 
he argued that the law could never have been intended 
to make men righteous. It could not have been 
instituted to accomplish the impossible. It must have 
been instituted with reference to an ulterior system 
which should be able to realise the legally impossible; 



144 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

a means to an end destined to be superseded when it 
had served its ancillary purpose ; a preparation for the 
advent of God's Son, who, coming in the likeness of 
sinful flesh, and with reference to sin, should condemn 
sin in the flesh, and help believers in Him to be indeed 
sons of God, walking not after the flesh but after the 
Spirit. We have seen with what fertile ingenuity the 
apostle describes the preparatory function of the law 
in the Epistle to the Galatians, and we shall have a 
future opportunity of considering his whole doctrine as 
to the legal economy from an apologetic point of view. 
Meantime what we have to note is the sombre aspect 
under which that doctrine presents the sinfulness of 
man. Human sinfulness is such as to make the question 
not an impertinence whether the very law of God which 
reveals it and provokes it into activity be not itself 
sinful. Yet there is a bright side to the picture. The 
law does more than bring to consciousness human 
depravity. In doing that it at the same time makes 
man aware that there is more in him than sin : a mind 
in sympathy with the moral ideal embodied in the law, 
an inner man in a state of protest against the deeds 
of the outer man. The action of the law on the flesh 
on the one hand, and on the conscience on the other, 
makes me feel that I am two, not one, and this duality 
is at once my misery and my hope : my misery, for it is 
wretched to be drawn two ways ; my hope, for I ever 
feel that my flesh and my sin, though mine, are not 
myself. This feeling all may share. On the bright 
hopeful side, as well as on the darker, St. Paul is the 
spokesman for the race. His TaXdnrcDpo^ iyco av0pco7ro<; 



THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 145 

voices not only the universal need of, but the universal 
desire for, redemption. It is the de profundis of sin- 
oppressed humanity. The apostle's doctrine of sin is not 
flattering, but neither is it indiscriminate. It is not a 
doctrine of total unrelieved depravity. It recognises a 
good element in average human nature. As described, 
that element appears weak and ineffectual. But the 
important thing to note is that it is there. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD 

The idea expressed by the phrase ' ' the righteousness of 
God " occupies the central place in St. Paul's theology, 
and contains his answer to the question, What was the 
great boon which came into the world by Jesus Christ. 
That the Christian summum bonum should assume this 
aspect to his mind was to be expected in the case of one 
who even in the pre-Christian period of his life had been 
animated by an intense though misguided passion for 
righteousness. Righteousness had always appeared the 
chief good to this man; he had sought it long in vain, 
and when at length he found it he gave to it a name 
expressive of its infinite worth to his heart: the right- 
eousness of Grod. It is a name which he has delib- 
erately chosen and to which he steadfastly adheres, 
using it in all his Epistles when opportunity occurs, 1 a 
fact all the more noteworthy that he is not, like the 
scholastic theologian, the slave of a phrase, or unable or 
unwilling to vary the mode of expression. He speaks 
now of the righteousness of faith, 2 anon of being justi- 
fied by faith, 3 at another time of faith being imputed 

1 Bom. i. 17 ; iii. 21, 22 ; x. 3 ; 2 Cor. v. 21; Fhil. iii. 9. 

2 Phil. iii. 9. 3 Bom. v. 1. 

146 



THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD 147 

for righteousness, 1 and in all these cases the idea he 
wishes to express is essentially the same. 

The righteousness of God, as the apostle conceives it, 
is something which belongs to the Christian man, yet is 
not his personal righteousness. It is a thing revealed, 2 
and to which a man submits. 3 It also belongs to God, 
yet is not His personal righteousness. It is a " gift " 4 
from God to men. It is divine credit for being right- 
eous bestowed on a man when he believes in, or trusts, 
God. God accounts one who believes in His grace 
righteous; He reckons his faith for righteousness. So 
the apostle puts the matter in Romans iv. 

This is the Pauline doctrine in its simplest, most 
elementary, undeveloped form. It gives, it will be 
observed, great prominence and importance to faith. 
Why may appear on further inquiry, but meantime it 
may be worth while to lay to heart the fact, and to 
weigh the significance of St. Paul's doctrine in its most 
general and fundamental aspect. 

1. The doctrine is in the first place the very antithesis of 
Judaism. The watchword of Judaistic righteousness was 
" works," individual acts of conformity to law; that of the 
new evangelistic righteousness is faith, trust in the living, 
loving God. " Do " said the one, " believe" says the other. 

2. Obviously the change in the watchword implies an 
altered idea of God. For Saul the legalist God was an 
exacting taskmaster, for Paul the Christian God has 
become the God of Jesus, a benignant gracious giver. 
What a revolution ! No wonder the term ' ' grace, ' ' 
%a/n?, is of frequent occurrence in St. Paul's pages, and 

1 Bom. iv. 24. 2 Ibidm L 17 . 3 jj^. x . 3. 4 2bidm v . 17. 



148 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

also faith, Trio-ris, its counterpart; for to grace in God 
answers faith, recipiency, in man. And of what peren- 
nial value is the doctrine that man is justified by faith 
and not by works, and that God is such a being that 
justification by faith is possible and alone possible! It 
is the charter of Christian liberty for all time : of eman- 
cipation from legalism with its treadmill service, and 
fear and gloom and uncertainty; from laborious self- 
salvation whether by religious ceremonial, or by ortho- 
dox opinions, or by the magic power of sacraments. 1 

3. We may be sure that for Paul the ex-legalist, the 
intense hungerer after righteousness, who had abandoned 
Judaism because he had discovered its righteousness to 
be a vanity and vexation of spirit, the new-found right- 
eousness of God is a great reality. "Faith imputed for 
righteousness ' ' may sound artificial, and provoke the 
reflection, What men need is not to be reckoned right- 
eous, but to be made actually righteous; but we may be 
sure that something real and valuable lurks under the 
phrase. For one thing pardon of sin is covered by it. 
This appears from Rom. iv. 6, 7, where the non-imputa- 
tion of sin is represented as the equivalent of the imputa- 
tion of righteousness without works. It also appears from 
the notable text, 2 Cor. v. 21, where it is said that Christ 
was made sin for us, that we might become the righteous- 
ness of God in Him. This is one of a group of texts 
through which the principle runs that sanctifier and 
sanctified are all of one ; Christ becoming what we are and 
we becoming what He is. He comes under a curse, that 

1 On this vide J. Freeman Clarke's The Ideas of the Apostle Paul 
translated into their Modem Equivalents (1884), chap. v. 



THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD 149 

we may become exempt from the curse; He comes under 
law, that we may be set free from law. On the same 
principle Christ the sinless becomes or is made sin, that 
we the sinful may become sinless. That is to say, " the 
righteousness of God ' ' is equivalent to the pardon or 
non-imputation of sin. Surely a solid boon to all who 
know what an accusing conscience is. 

4. It is not likely that for St. Paul the ex-legalist the 
imputation of faith for righteousness will bear a sense 
which implies any notion of merit in faith, or turn faith 
into a new form of work. On the contraiy, he takes 
pains to inform us that he has no sympathy with such a 
thought. 4 ' Where then, ' ' he asks, 4 4 is the boasting ? It 
is excluded. By what sort of a law ? of works ? Nay, 
but by the law of faith." 1 That is to say, the spirit 
of self-complacency and that on which it feeds, self- 
righteousness, are incompatible with the very nature of 
faith. This is sound wholesome teaching, but to main- 
tain it it is not necessary to hold that faith has no moral 
contents or value. The contrary is undoubtedly the fact. 
To believe in God, to trust in His grace, is emphatically 
a righteous act. It is to do justice to God, to His 
character, to His spirit; to think right thoughts about 
Him, and to cherish a becoming attitude and feeling 
towards Him. It is the fundamental act of true right- 
eousness. It is the only form of righteousness possible 
for sinners ; it is a form of righteousness possible for the 
greatest sinner ; nay, which is not only possible for him, 
but which he of all men can best exhibit, for the greater 
the sinner the greater the honour done to God by trust in 
1 Bom. iii. 27. 



150 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

His grace. He who having sinned much trusts in divine 
grace is " strong in faith giving glory to God." 1 But 
there is no ground for boasting in that fact. Boasting 
is excluded by the nature of the case. A great sinner 
trusting in God's grace is simply one who humbly yet 
trustfully confesses his deep need of forgiveness. Such 
an one may, as Jesus taught, be exalted by God, but 
he cannot possibly exalt himself. The denizens of the 
slums do not think themselves very virtuous in accept- 
ing the invitation to a free breakfast; they simply eat 
ravenously and thankfully. 

The foregoing observations help us to see that the 
crude elementary form of the Pauline doctrine of Justi- 
fication is by no means to be despised or neglected as 
unimportant. It is indeed as little to be despised as the 
foundation of a house. For it is the religious foundation, 
and all beyond is theological superstructure, though we 
in our familiarity with developed doctrines are very apt 
to forget the fact. On this foundation rested the 
salvation of many who lived before the Christian era, 
Abraham included. Abraham believed God, and it 
was accounted unto him for righteousness, but he knew 
nothing of St. Paul's developed doctrine of Justification. 
Similar was the case of devout souls even in the days of 
our Lord. The faith of the publican in the parable is 
still of the Old Testament type, expressing itself in a 
prayer which echoes the 130th Psalm: " God be merciful 
to me the sinner." Yet he went down to his house 
"justified." 2 Even now, in the Christian era, there are 
men who feel compelled to fall back on the ultimate 
1 Bom. iv. 20. 2 Luke xviii. 14, SeSi/caw/^os. 



THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD 151 

religious truth that a sinner's hope is in the mercy and 
grace of God as the only thing they are able to grasp. 
It is not for us to say that such men cannot go down to 
their house justified. The words of Jesus : ' 4 He that 
humbleth himself shall be exalted ' ' 1 express a univer- 
sal law in the moral order of the world. 

It will be noted that even when taken in its most 
general form, the Pauline conception of evangelic right- 
eousness, while possessing important affinities with the 
doctrine of Christ concerning the righteousness of the 
kingdom in its religious presuppositions, yet is distinct 
from anything we find in the synoptical presentation of 
our Lord's teaching. There is a righteousness of God in 
the doctrine of the kingdom, but it is subjective and 
ethical, not objective and theological. The nearest ap- 
proach to the righteousness of God in the Pauline sense 
in the teaching of Christ is the pardoning grace of God. 
To pardon in Pauline phraseology is to treat as righteous. 2 

Let us proceed now to consider the apostle's specific 
doctrine of justification. Insight into it may be gained 
by a careful study of his statements concerning the 
nature and functions of faith. We are justified by faith, 
he teaches; what then is the faith that justifies ? 

1. An important light is thrown on this question by 
Rom. iii. 21-26 which may in one aspect be viewed as a 
definition or description of justifying faith. There faith 
is in the first place defined with reference to its personal 
object as the faith of Christ, which means not the faith 

1 Luke xviii. 14. 

2 On Christ's positive doctrine of righteousness, vide The Kingdom 
of God, p. 207. 



152 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

that Jesus is the Christ, but rather faith in Christ as the 
embodiment of divine grace. It is further indicated 
that that in Christ on which the eye of faith is chiefly 
fixed is the redemption achieved by His death, wherein 
the grace of God to the sinful manifests itself. Accord- 
ing to this passage, therefore, the faith that justifies is 
not simply faith in God, or faith in God's grace, or 
faith in the truth that Jesus is the Christ, but faith in 
Jesus as one who gave Himself to death for man's re- 
demption, and so became the channel through which 
God's grace flows to sinners. Following out this idea 
of faith, justification might be defined as a judicial act 
whereby God regards as righteous those who trust in His 
grace as manifested in the atoning death of Christ. This 
account of the matter might serve all practical purposes, 
and even be preferable to more highly differentiated 
definitions, especially for the purpose of catechetical 
instruction in the elements of the Christian religion. 

2. But St. Paul has more to say concerning faith. 
In certain texts he seems to conceive of faith as grasping 
and appropriating to itself the ideal righteousness as 
realised in the conduct of Christ. So for example in the 
words: " As by one man's disobedience many were made 
sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made 
righteous." 1 Sinful in Adam, righteous in Christ, such 
seems to be the apostle's thought. Faith is indeed not 
mentioned in this place, but it may be held to be 
implied as the condition of becoming righteous in Christ. 
What faith can appropriate God may impute. Intro- 
ducing this new idea of the imputation of Christ's 
1 Bom. v. 19. 



THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD 153 

righteousness we get a more developed definition of 
justification, such as that in the Westminster Assembly's 
Shorter Catechism, according to which it is "an act of 
God's free grace, wherein He pardoneth all our sins, 
and accepteth us as righteous in His sight, only for the 
righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by 
faith alone." This definition may be regarded as a fair 
inference from Pauline texts, such as that above cited, 1 
though it must be admitted that it lacks support in ex- 
press Pauline phraseology. The apostle nowhere speaks 
of the righteousness of Christ being imputed, nor does 
he anywhere identify the righteousness of God given to 
faith with the righteousness of Christ, even in places 
where he might have been expected to do so, assuming 
that his way of thinking on the subject was similar to 
that of the theologians who compiled the Shorter 
Catechism, e.g., in Philippians iii. 9. 2 On this ground so 
conservative a theologian as Weiss maintains that the 
idea that God imputes to men the righteousness of Christ 
does not belong to the Pauline system of thought. 3 

3. The apostle conceives of faith as performing yet 
another function in reference to Christ's righteousness, 

1 To which may be added 1 Cor. i. 26 and 2 Cor. v. 21. 

2 Where instead of ttjv dia 7r£crrews xpiaTov might have stood ttjv 
diKaioa-vvrjv xp^rov, more especially as faith is mentioned in the next 
clause. 

3 Fide his Lehrbuch der Biblischen Theologie des N.T., sect. 82, 6, 
note 2 : Pfleiderer in his Urchristenthum, p. 250, and in the second 
edition of his Paulinismus (1890), p. 184, inclines to the same view. 
He remarks that the non-use by St. Paul of the expression "the 
imputation of Christ's righteousness" is the more remarkable as the 
imputation of the merits of the fathers and of saints was a feature in 
the theology of the Jewish synagogue. 



154 st. 

— as not only appropriating it as a ground of pardon, but 
as establishing such a relation between Christ and a be- 
liever as guarantees that the ideal objective righteousness 
without shall eventually become a real righteousness 
within. So in these words, forming a part of the famous 
Antioch remonstrance: "I am crucified with Christ, 
yet I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me, 
and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith 
in the Son of God who loved me, and gave Himself up 
for me. " a Is this function of faith included in the faith 
that justifies f If so, then our formula will be : Gcod 
regards as righteous all whose faith in Christ not only lays 
claim to His righteousness as its own, but contains in itself 
the guarantee for the ultimate reproduction of a kindred 
righteousness in the character of the believer. But here 
the theological ways part. There have always been two 
tendencies at work in the Church, one to restrict and 
minimise the function of faith in justification, the other 
to make it as comprehensive as possible. For those who 
follow the former tendency faith is simply a hand laying 
hold of an external benefit, a garment of righteousness 
to cover spiritual nakedness; for the patrons of the 
latter, faith is the faithful germ of all true righteous- 
ness, containing the promise and potency of a new 
Christlike life. Both parties are animated by a genuine 
religious interest, the one by a desire to exclude a new 
form of legalism coming in under the wing of faith, the 
other by a desire to make sure that the righteousness of 
God given to faith shall be something real and God- 
worthy, not something shadowy, formal and artificial. 
1 Gal. ii. 20. 



THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OP GOD 155 

Yet it is possible that in their antagonism to each other 
these two parties may both err in opposite directions. 

As is well known, the Protestant theological tradition 
has very decidedly leant to the side of minimising faith's 
function. The great doctors of the Lutheran and 
Reformed confessions emptied faith of all moral con- 
tents, that no pretext might remain for ascribing to it 
justifying virtue, and assigned to it simply the humble 
service of claiming an interest in the foreign righteous- 
ness of Christ. They even went the length of setting 
aside the scriptural idea of the imputation of faith and 
substituting for it the idea of the imputation of Christ's 
righteousness, keeping themselves right with St. Paul by 
the ingenious device of taking faith, in the texts where 
it is said to be imputed, objectively, so bringing out the 
meaning that not the act of believing, but the object 
believed in, the righteousness of Christ, is imputed. 
This manner of handling the locus of justification is very 
open to criticism. In the first place it is unfortunate 
that the Protestant doctors, in their laudable zeal against 
neo-legalism should have found it necessary to become 
un-Pauline in their terminology, banishing from their 
theological vocabulary the imputation of faith as not 
only inexact but even heretical, 1 and employing ex- 
clusively a phrase which, however legitimate as an 
inference from Scripture texts, has no express scriptural 
warrant. This fact is an index that somehow they had 
got upon the wrong track, and had fallen into one-sided- 

1 This attitude is reflected in the Westminster Confession, chap, xi., 
where among the false ways of justification that "by imputing faith 
itself " is specified. 



156 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

ness in their way of thinking. Then, in the second 
place, the justifying faith of this very controversial, 
extremely anti-Romish, theology, is an abstraction. A 
faith which is no more than a mere hand to lay hold of 
an external righteousness has no existence except in the 
brain of a scholastic theologian. Faith, if it deserve the 
name, is always very much more than this. The more 
the better. Faith cannot have too much moral con- 
tents; the more it has, the better it will serve us from 
the beginning to the end of our Christian career. At 
the very least true faith is always a humble trust in the 
grace of God, and that is a thing of real moral value. 
Then it lies in the very nature of true faith to open the 
soul to the influence of Christ, so that from the day we 
believe in Him He becomes a renovating power in our 
life. Lastly, the scrupulous anxiety to shut out legal- 
ism in the form of the imputation of faith, as the germ 
of a personal Christian righteousness, may readily 
defeat itself by introducing unawares legalism under 
another guise. We do not get rid of legalism by care- 
ful theological definitions designed to exclude it. We 
may introduce thereby a dogmatic legalism as blighting 
in its influence on the Christian life, as the Judaism of 
the apostolic age, or the Sacramentarianism of Rome. 
It cannot be good for the health of our piety that we 
should be constantly taking care that our faith in the 
God of all grace shall be as destitute as possible of 
moral contents, lest perchance we fall into the mistake of 
finding in an ethically rich faith a ground of boasting. 

But on the other hand it may be well for the health of 
Christian piety that we should think of God as imput- 



THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD 157 

ing faith for righteousness only in respect of its objective 
function. It is perfectly true that from the divine 
point of view the distinctions we make between the 
different stages in the process of salvation are evanescent. 
To the divine eye, contemplating all things sub specie 
ceternitatis, the whole drama of salvation in its five acts 
— foreknowledge, foreordination, calling, justification, 
sanctification x — is one. Yet from the human point of 
view, it may be important to distinguish between the 
stages, especially between the two last named. It may 
be advantageous even in order to the consummation 
devoutly to be wished — conformity to the image of 
Christ — that we should conceive of God as justifying us 
on purely objective grounds, without reference to the 
work of grace He is to accomplish in us. It may give 
us a powerful initial impetus onwards towards the goal 
to be told that God pardons our sins, and accepts us as 
righteous, on account of the moral idea realised in Christ, 
the object of our trust. It may start us on our way 
with a peace, joy, and hope impossible to one who is 
constantly thinking of the uncertainties of the future. 
So Jesus dealt with penitents. With cheerful, hope- 
inspiring tone He said unconditionally, " Thy faith hath 
saved thee, go into peace," while perfectly aware that 
there were risks ahead, and that peace could not last 
unless sin were finally forsaken. 

Is it not thus that St. Paul also conceives God as 

dealing with men in the matter of justification ? In 

answering this question in the affirmative, I do not lay 

much stress on the verbal interpretation of the Pauline 

1 Bom. viii. 29, 30. 



158 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

words Bi/caiovv and &lkcii(0(tl<;. The controversy as to the 
meaning of these words is now as good as ended. It is 
admitted on all hands by theologians of the most diverse 
schools that in the apostle's use they bear a judicial or 
forensic sense. Dr. Newman in England, in 1838, taught 
that justification in the abstract, and as such, is an 
imputation and a counting righteous, 1 and Dr. Lipsius 
in Germany, in 1853, taught that hucaiovv never means 
justum facere, but always justum habere. But both 
strenuously opposed the purely forensic conception of 
justification. Dr. Newman held that while in the 
abstract it is a counting righteous, in the concrete it is a 
making righteous, and Dr. Lipsius maintained that in so 
far as it is a judicial sentence pronounced at the com- 
mencement of the Christian life, it is simply the pre- 
announcement of a real inward righteousness which God 
intends by His grace to make forthcoming. 2 In effect the 
position taken up by both is that God justifies because 
He intends to sanctify. 

Was that the apostle's position ? I think not, though 
in saying so I do not for a moment doubt that what the 
apostle desired for himself and for all Christians, was a 
real personal inward righteousness, and that he would 
think nothing had been gained unless that were gained. 
Neither do I doubt that in his view God aimed at this 
result, even that believers should be conformed to the 
image of His Son. But two considerations lead me to 
believe that St. Paul did not conceive of future sanctifi- 
cation as the ground of initial justification. The first is 

1 Vide his Lectures on Justification, p. 70. 

2 Vide Die Paul. Rechtfertigungslehre, p. 17. 



THE BIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD 159 

what lie says in 2 Cor. v. 17 about "God in Christ 
reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their 
trespasses unto them." These words suggest the idea 
of a general justification of mankind, in the form of a 
non-imputation of sins, on the purely objective ground 
of God's satisfaction with the merits of Jesus Christ. 
Individual justification on that view will naturally 
mean entering by faith into the state of grace in 
which God for Christ's sake is pleased to place the 
world. Doubtless this is but the beginning of salvation, 
but it is a momentous beginning, which one who, like 
St. Paul, had tried to reach salvation by the legal method 
was not likely to undervalue. No wonder he appro- 
priates to it the title, the righteousness of God, as if it 
were the principal thing or even everything. This does 
not mean that he undervalues what follows. It means 
that he has a due sense of the infinite importance of being 
at last on the right road. It indicates also, probably, 
his desire to give prominence to objective justification as 
a great, public, world-wide fact : God reconciling the word 
to Himself in Christ. Finally, it means giving the place 
of honour to that feature in the Pauline conception of 
Christianity, at which the antagonism between it and 
legalism is most conspicuous. The quest of personal 
righteousness was common to the two systems ; in their 
attitude towards the righteousness of God, they were 
diametrically opposed. 

The other consideration that weighs much with me is 
this: that St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans does 
not refer to the subjective aspect of faith as a renewing 
power till he has finished his exposition of the doctrine 



160 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

of justification. He takes up faith's function in estab- 
lishing a vital union with Christ in the sixth chapter, 
continuing the theme to the end of chapter viii. But 
already he has said in exultant tone : ' ' Being justified by 
faith, we have peace with God, and joy in hope of glory, 
in tribulation, and in God Himself." Does not this 
amount to the exclusion of faith's sanctifying function 
from the grounds of justification ? To the end of 
chap. v. the apostle seems to be treating of an objective 
righteousness, and from that point omvards to the end 
of chap. viii. of a righteousness that is subjective. How 
the two aspects were related in his mind will be a 
subject of inquiry hereafter: meantime the important 
matter is to be satisfied in our own minds that there are 
two aspects to be frankly recognised. 

4. There remain to be noticed two other statements in 
the Pauline Epistles respecting faith's functions which 
appear to have a bearing on the subject of justification. 
I refer to Romans iv. 25 and x. 9, in both of which faith 
seems to be viewed as having for its proper object the resur- 
rection of Christ, and faith in Christ's resurrection seems 
to be regarded as the ground of justification. How are 
these texts to be understood ? The suggestion that when 
St. Paul represents Christ as raised Bid tt)v Sifcaccocnv tj/jlcov 
he uses the term St/catWt? in the sense of sanctification, is 
justly put aside on the ground that this interpretation is 
not in accordance with Pauline usage, or in keeping with 
the connection of thought in which the word here occurs. 
More acceptable is the explanation offered by the majority 
of commentators that the apostle in these passages means 
to represent Christ's resurrection as the ground not of our 



THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD 161 

justification but of out faith in the atoning character of His 
death. " The resurrection of the sacrificed One was re- 
quired to produce in men the faith through which alone 
the objective fact of the atoning offering of Jesus could 
have the effect of Sc/calcocns subjectively." x But M. Mene- 
goz has propounded a new theory, which, because of the 
ability, freshness, and real value of his contribution to the 
elucidation of the Pauline system of thought, claims re- 
spectful consideration. Briefly it is this : that the resurrec- 
tion of Christ was necessary in the first place for His own 
justification, and that through faith in that resurrection 
we become partakers of Christ's justification. The author 
of Le Peche et la Redemption finds in Phil. iii. 8-10 the 
most precise statement of the Pauline doctrine of justifica- 
tion by faith, which he thinks no theologian has perfectly 
understood. " The key of the system," in his view, " is on 
the one hand the notion of the justification of Christ by 
death and resurrection, and on the other hand the notion 
of the identification of the individual with the person of 
Christ by faith." 2 " That which is peculiar to Paul is the 
mystic notion of the identification of man with Jesus 
Christ by faith, and the appropriation by that means of the 
justification of Christ." 3 The idea of Christ needing to be 
justified by resurrection may appear strange, but the au- 
thor quoted is quite in earnest in broaching it. Its presup- 
positions in the Pauline system, as he understands it, are 
these : — Death is the punishment of sin ; He that has paid 
the penalty of transgression has satisfied justice and is en- 
titled to go free. The thief when his term of imprisonment 

1 Meyer in loc. 2 Le Peche, etc. p. 270. 

3 Ibid. etc. p. 271. 



162 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

is at an end must be set at liberty. In like manner Christ, 
who died for our sins, had by death squared accounts with 
justice and was entitled to return to life. If it be asked, 
Would it not have sufficed that the crucified One should 
continue to live on in the spirit without a physical resurrec- 
tion? our author replies that, according to the Pauline sys- 
tem, death is the destruction of life, and death in that sense, 
not the endurance of eternal pain, is the penalty of sin. 
Paul was a monist, a man for him was an animated body, 
and the destruction of the body by death was the destruc- 
tion of life. Therefore it is not by accident that nowhere in 
his writings can we find a trace of a resurrection for the 
wicked. Hence also it follows that had Jesus not risen it 
would have meant that he had perished with the wicked. 
Space will not admit of a detailed criticism of this theory 
on all sides, and especially in connection with its anthro- 
pological and eschatological presuppositions. A few 
remarks only can be offered here. It certainly has the 
merit of assigning a strong reason for the resurrection of 
Christ, in viewing it as what was due to One who had borne 
the full penalty of sin. Nor can we object to the theory 
that it leaves no room for an objective justification of 
sinners; inasmuch as, while the author certainly seems to 
lay chief stress on subjective justification by the mystic 
power of faith, he might quite legitimately regard the res- 
urrection of Christ as a general justification of the world. 
But this novel and ingenious explanation of the apostle's 
doctrine is at fault in other directions. In the first place, 
under it justification bears two different senses, in refer- 
ence to Christ on the one hand, and to believers on the 
other. In reference to us, it means either, according to one 



THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD 163 

school, accounting those righteous who are not yet really 
righteous, or making them righteous by a gradual pro- 
cess, according to a different understanding of the apostle's 
meaning. In reference to Christ it means neither of 
these things, but acknowledging that the Just One had 
vicariously paid the full penalty of sin so that sin had no 
more right over him : He was justified from sin. 1 Then, 
secondly, a double meaning lurks under the word death 
also, as applied to Christ and to sinners. If death be the 
wages of sin, and Christ died in the capacity of a sinner, 
why should Efe rise any more than any other man who 
dies as a criminal ? If one by death can be justified from 
sin so as to be entitled to rise again, why not all ? Obvi- 
ously in the case of Christ death is not taken in the sense 
of destruction, which it is held to bear in reference to the 
wicked, but simply in the sense of death's^am. The pro- 
pounder of the theory now under consideration admits 
that this double sense of death is involved, but he charges 
it as a fault against the apostle's system of thought, not 
against his own interpretation of it. Finally, it is strange 
that this view, if really held by St. Paul, has left so little 
trace in his vocabulary. He is rich in words expressing 
co-partnership between the believer and Christ. There is 
a co-crucifixion, a co-dying, a co-burial, a co-rising, a co- 
living, a co-suffering, a co-glorification. The diapason 
would be complete if a co-justification found its place 
among these joint-experiences. But it is not forthcoming. 
If the apostle meant to teach the doctrine M. Menegoz 
ascribes to him, he has not been happy in his language. 2 

1 Bom. vi. 7. 

2 In the new edition of Der Paulinismus, Pfleiderer, while not 



164 ST. PAUL'S CONCEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 

adopting the theory of Menegoz, speaks very favourably of it, as rea- 
sonable in itself and consistent with Pauline texts. Vide p. 160. I 
have read what my esteemed colleague Dr. Candlish says in the Exposi- 
tor for December 1893, on the theory of Christ's justification by resur- 
rection. He cites several authors as holding this view, and remarks 
that instead of being a novelty it might rather be regarded as a com- 
monplace of theology. It is hardly that surely, but rather a curious 
opinion of certain theologians, concerning which Pfleiderer, Everett, 
and myself, might excusably be ignorant. In some respects, certainly, 
the view of Menegoz is peculiar, e.g., that the alternatives in the case 
of Christ were resurrection or annihilation ; there being no life here- 
after for the wicked. 



CHAPTER IX 



THE DEATH OF CHRIST 



Of the four lessons which Jesus taught His disciples con- 
cerning the significance of His death, the first was that, in 
enduring a violent death at the hands of men, He should 
be suffering for righteousness' sake. 1 In this earliest 
lesson the Master presented His approaching end under 
a purely ethical aspect, and consistingly therewith He 
spoke of it not as an isolated event, but as a fact falling 
under a general law, according to which all who are 
faithful to the divine interest in an evil world must en- 
dure suffering. From this point of view it is obvious 
that it is not for the death of Christ alone that a rationale 
is wanted. The question may legitimately be raised, 
What is the final cause of the sufferings of the righteous 
generally? a question on which the thoughts of Old 
Testament prophets, psalmists, and sages had been much 
exercised. There is need of a theodicy along the whole 
line. Does the same theodicy suffice for the case of Jesus 
and for that of all His fellow-sufferers ? May we reason 
about the latter as St. Paul reasoned about the former, 
and say if death be the penalty of sin, there are only 

1 Vide The Kingdom of God, chap. x. ; vide also the supplementary- 
note on the Teaching of St. Paul compared with the Teaching of our 
Lord in the Synoptical Gospels, at the end of this volume. 

165 



166 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

two alternatives : either all who suffer suffer for their 
own sins — the theory of Job's friends; or some who 
suffer, suffer redemptively, for the sins of others — the 
theory hinted at in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah 
interpreted historically as referring to the afflictions of 
God's faithful ones in Israel ! 

The ethical aspect of Christ's death is hardly touched 
on in the Pauline literature. What the apostle might 
have done had he written copiously and systematically 
on the subject one cannot guess, but it is certain that in 
the Epistles which form the basis of the present study 
he contemplates the death of Jesus by itself apart, and 
exclusively from a religious and theological view-point. 
His whole aim in all his statements regarding that event 
is to point out the significance for faith of a unique 
experience befalling One believed to be personally sin- 
less, who could not therefore be conceived of as in His 
passion suffering for His own sin. What we have to 
do now is as far as possible to ascertain the meaning 
and estimate the value of these statements. 

In our rapid survey of the four principal Epistles we 
lighted on certain texts bearing all the appearance of 
being forms of language into which the brooding thought 
of the writer on the death of Jesus had finally crystallised. 
Among the great Pauline logia relating to that theme, fall 
to be classed those which speak of Christ being made a 
curse and sin for us that we might become curse-free and 
sinless. 1 To these, as not less important, must be added 
the word in Romans iii. 25, in which God is represented 
as publicly exhibiting Jesus in His death in a propitiatory 
1 Gal. iii. 13 : 2 Cor. v. 21. 



THE DEATH OF CHRIST 167 

capacity. Having already used the passage in which that 
text occurs for the purpose of throwing light on the right- 
eousness of God, and the faith which justifies, we may 
begin our study of St. Paul's teaching concerning the sig- 
nificance of Christ's death by returning to it to consider 
the instruction which it contains on the latter topic. 

The word IXaaTijptov has given almost as much trouble 
to commentators as Ovfjuartfptov in Hebrews ix. 4, though 
not for the same reason. In the latter case there would be 
little doubt as to the meaning were it not that the true 
rendering, "the altar of incense," seems to involve the 
writer in an inaccuracy as to the location of that piece of 
furniture in the tabernacle. In the case of the former, the 
difficulty arises from the paucity of material of kindred 
character in the Pauline literature to guide us in interpre- 
tation. On first thoughts one is inclined to assume that 
the term IXacrT^ptov is employed to represent Christ in His 
death as a propitiatory sacrifice or sin-offering. But then 
it is noticeable, and has indeed been insisted on by exposi- 
tors of weight, 1 that St. Paul makes very little use else- 
where of the Levitical sacrificial system in the formulation 
of his doctrine of the cross, and there is force in the remark 
that that system would be far less congenial to his mind as 
a vehicle of thought than prophetic utterances concerning 
the suffering servant of Jehovah such as those contained in 
Isaiah liii. Then, further, it has to be considered that in 
the Septuagint the term in question is not employed to 
denote the sin-offering. It is rather used as the Greek 
equivalent for the Kapporeth, the lid of the ark, or the 
mercy-seat. Accordingly, the older interpreters assumed 
1 So Weiss and Pfleiderer. 



168 st. 

that the apostle followed the Septuagint usage, and 
found in the text the, in many respects attractive, idea 
that in Christ God had provided for a sinful world 
the mercy-seat of the new dispensation, a mercy-seat 
sprinkled with Christ's precious blood, like the lid of 
the ark with the blood of the victim on the great day of 
atonement. Those who, like most recent interpreters, 
reject this sense as fanciful, and not suitable in an 
Epistle written to Romans, have to choose between two 
other alternatives, either taking IXaarrjpiov as a noun 
signifying definitely a propitiatory victim, or as a neuter 
adjective signifying generally a means of propitiation. 1 
In our perplexity it may be well to see if we cannot 
to a greater extent than has been thought possible make 
St. Paul his own interpreter. For this purpose it is im- 
portant to observe that in Romans iii. 21-26, he resumes 
the thought of Romans i. 17, 18. At least it is quite 
certain that Romans iii. 21 resumes the thought- of 
Romans i. 17. In the latter text the apostle had spoken 
prelusively of a righteousness of God which he had not 
at that point the opportunity of further explaining, his 
mind going off immediately on the topic of the world's 
sin. The sin-section ended, he returns to the theme at 
Romans iii. 21, and tells his readers what the righteous- 

1 Wendt favours the old interpretation, vide his essay on " Die Lehre 
des Paulus verglichen mit der Lehre Jesu," in Zeitschrift fur Theologie 
und Kirche, 1894. He says, p. 53: " Indem Gott den Tod Christi 
zur Erweisung seiner den Sunder gnadenmassig gerechtsprechenden 
Gnade veranstaltet hat, ist Christus in seinem Blute, d. h. in seinem 
Kreuzestode, zu einer offentlich dargestellten Kapporet, zu einer 
allgemein anschaulichen Offenbarung des Gnaden-willens Gottes 
geworden." 



THE DEATH OF CHRIST 169 

ness of God to which he had alluded really is. Now 
this being the fact with regard to the topic of the 
righteousness of God, is it not every way likely that 
the same thing holds true regarding the other topic, 
mentioned in Romans i. 18, and that the apostle has in 
his mind the ivrath of God when he speaks of God as 
publicly setting forth Christ as IXaarrjpiov in His blood ? 
The suggestion needs only to be made to commend 
itself; but confirmation, if needful, may be found in 
Romans v. 9, where we find God's wrath and Christ's 
blood associated in the apostle's thought. But if at 
Romans iii. 25 the apostle reverts to what he had said 
in Romans i. 18, then it is natural to suppose that in 
the death of Jesus he sees two things: a revelation of 
divine wrath, and a means of averting it. Both point 
in the direction of a sacrificial victim; not necessarily 
after the analogy of Levitical sacrifices, for the apostle 
may have had in view the human sacrifices with which 
Greek and Roman story makes us familiar. That would 
be indeed a bold collocation; but boldness is what we 
expect from St. Paul, not to mention that what he says 
in Romans v. 7, about one man dying for another, tends 
to show that he would not have regarded the use of 
heathen instances in illustration of the gospel as im- 
proper or inadmissible. His appeal is to general human 
history. 

The fact-basis of the idea that Christ suffered death 
as a sacrificial victim is that His blood was shed (eV t&> 
eavrov a r ifJLari). His death was a violent one, and 
looking away from subordinate, human causality, the 
apostle sees in it only the hand of God; it was God 



170 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

that put Jesus to death as a lamb slaiu for the siu of 
the world. And by this act God in the first place, as 
St. Paul views the matter, demonstrated, revealed his 
wrath against sin. For this I take to be the revelation 
of wrath whereof the apostle speaks in Romans i. 18. 
Commentators have been at a loss to know what the 
revelation consisted in, or how it was made, and in 
their perplexity have taken refuge in the unnatural 
vices of the pagans as the divinely-appointed penalty 
of sin. It seems to me that we should find both the 
revelations spoken of, of righteousness and of wrath, in 
the death of Jesus. By that death, according to the 
apostle, God shows what He really thinks of sin. Apart 
from that death, men might be inclined to ask: If God 
be so angry at the wickedness of the world, why does 
He not make some signal display of His indignation? 
To judge from appearances, one would say He did 
not care. Men go on sinning, from bad to worse, and 
He makes no sign. St. Paul replies : Look to Calvary, 
there is the sign. God's wrath against sin is such that 
He inflicts that bloody, cruel death on His own Son, 
occupying the position of a propitiatory victim. 

While assigning to Christ's death the double function 
of revealing and averting divine wrath, like the thunder- 
storm which at once reveals and heals electric trouble 
in the air, the apostle has in view chiefly the latter 
aspect. His aim is not to proclaim the fact that Christ 
was slain as a sacrifice, but rather to emphasise the 
gracious purpose for which He suffered. Therefore 
IXaan'-jpiov is to be taken as an adjective rather than 
as a noun, because, so understood, the word makes the 



THE DEATH OF CHRIST 171 

gracious purpose more prominent. The apostle leaves 
the revelation of wrath in the background, and brings 
to the front the revelation of love, providing a way of 
escape from wrath. He says here in effect what he 
says further on in express terms: " God commendeth 
His own love towards us, in that while we were yet 
sinners Christ died for us ! " 1 He means to accentuate 
the love of God, not His wrath, or even His righteous- 
ness. He does indeed speak of God's righteousness — 
that is, of His regard for moral interests, but not 
dogmatically by way of teaching the necessity for the 
manifestation or " satisfaction " of divine justice in con- 
nection with human salvation, but rather apologetically 
by way of pointing out that the actual method of salva- 
tion is such that God cannot rightfully be charged with 
moral indifference; the death of Christ showing that, 
whatever facts in the world's history might seem to 
point in a contrary direction, sin is not really a trivial 
matter in God's sight. 

By finding in the word IXao-rijpiov a real though tacit 
reference to the wrath of God, we bring this Pauline 
text into line with the two referred to on a previous 
page, and also with the logion in G-alatians iv. 4. In 
these three passages one principle is involved, viz., that 
in His earthly experience Christ was subjected to all 
that is unblessed in man's unredeemed state, with the 
result of man being delivered from it. This is the 
principle of redemption. Christ's whole state of humilia- 
tion was the Xvrpov, the resulting benefit for us is 
a7ro\vTp(oaLs. He was made under the law, by circum- 
1 Bom. v. 8. 



172 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

cision and otherwise, and we are redeemed from sub- 
jection to law into sonship. He was made a curse, and 
we are redeemed from the law's curse. He was made 
sin, and we are made sinless. Adding to these three 
instances the fourth suggested in Romans iii. 25, Christ 
became in lot an object of divine wrath, with the effect 
that men guilty of sins provocative of God's indignation 
are shielded and saved from wrath. This principle, or law, 
well established by these examples, may be used as a clue 
to the meaning of a text which has given much trouble 
to commentators — Romans viii. 3. It has commonly 
been assumed that the condemnation of sin in the flesh 
referred to in the last clause took place in Christ's death, 
irepl a/xapTia^ being taken in the sense of a sin-offering. 
God sending His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and 
as an offering for sin, in His sacrificial death, condemned 
sin in the flesh — such is the traditional interpretation. 
Is it quite certain that this is the true meaning? Let 
us see. It may be assumed that St. Paul here points to 
an experience of Christ that meets a need of man which 
has been the subject of remark in the preceding context. 
But of what need has the apostle been speaking ? Our 
need of help to resist and overcome the law of sin in 
the members, the preponderant and domineering influ- 
ence of the flesh. But what is there in Christ's earthly 
experience that can give us help here ? One would say 
noi, His death, but rather His holy life in the flesh, 
demonstrating that bondage to the aapt; is not inevita- 
ble, embodying in a successful experiment of resistance 
God's condemnation of sin in the flesh, as a thing that 
ought not to be and that need not be, Christ's life in the 



THE DEATH OF CHKIST 173 

Spirit being, not less than His death, a divine appoint- 
ment for man's good. The application of the principle 
exemplified in the other four texts to this fifth one 
would lead to the same conclusion. That principle 
requires that the experience of Christ which is to benefit 
us in any given way must correspond to the nature of 
the benefit. The benefit in the present instance being 
emancipation from hopelessness as to the possibility of 
walking in the Spirit in spite of the flesh, the redemptive 
experience of Christ ought to be the proof supplied in 
His life that to walk in the Spirit is not impossible. It 
may indeed be asked, Where is the element of humilia- 
tion in that experience of Christ ? The reply must be, 
In the fact that He was sent in the likeness of sinful 
flesh ; in other words, that His life on earth was enacted, 
like ours, under conditions involving temptation to sin. 
God's whole aim in sending His Son into the world was 
with reference to sin Qirepl afiapria^, that by every part 
of His earthly experience He might work in one way or 
another towards the destruction of sin. Christ's personal 
struggle with temptation arising out of the flesh was 
designed to make its contribution to this end; and it 
does so not merely by way of example, but by way of a 
divine proclamation that the malign dominion of the 
flesh is at an end, and that henceforth men shall be 
enabled to walk in the Spirit, even while living in the 
flesh. As the reign of law was doomed by the mere 
fact that Christ was made under the law, so the reign 
of the flesh is doomed by the mere fact that Christ was 
sent in the likeness of sinful flesh. 1 

1 This is in substance the view of this text taken by Godet and 



174 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

It is important to note that in all these instances of 
the principle or law of redemption the apostle gives us 
what he conceives to be the religious significance of the 
obvious facts of Christ's experience. When he says, e.g., 
that Christ was made under law, he has in view mainly 
the fact that He was circumcised. In like manner he 
conceives of Christ as made sin by enduring physical 
death, the appointed and historic penalty of sin; as 
made a curse by enduring death in the form of cruci- 
fixion; 1 as made under God's wrath by enduring death 
in a manner which involved blood-shedding, as in the case 
of sacrificial victims; and as made in the likeness of 
sinful flesh, because subject to temptation arising out of the 
affections of the flesh, as in the case of the first temptation 
in the wilderness. To a dogmatically trained intellect, 
the fact-basis for the corresponding theological categories 
may appear slight, and the temptation is strong to supply 
for the doctrinal superstructure either from the evangelic 
history, or from imagination, a broader, more adequate 
foundation. The procedure may be very natural, but 
it is not exegesis. We must remember that St. Paul's 
problem was not the same as that of the scholastic 
theologian. When he became a believer, the imperative 
task for him was to read in a new light the plain surface 
facts of Christ's earthly history. The question he had to 
ask and answer as best he could was: What meaning 
am I to put upon the facts that One whom I now 

Weiss. Vide Godet's Commentary, and Weiss r s Lelirbuch der Bibl. 
Theologie des N. T., p. 308. 

1 See note at the end of this chapter on Professor Everett's TJie 
Gospel of Paul. 



THE DEATH OF CHRIST 175 

believe to be the Messiah and the holy One of God 
was circumcised and endured death, by crucifixion and 
by blood-shedding ? On the other hand, the problem of 
the systematic theologian is to verify and justify the 
theological categories supplied to him in the apostle's 
answer to that question by an exhaustive statement of 
the relative facts. In doing this he is in danger of 
stepping out of the region of history into the realm of 
imagination, a danger which has been proved to be very 
real in connection with Christ's endurance of the wrath 
of God, and of death as the penalty of sin, represen- 
tatives of Protestant scholastic orthodoxy not hesitating 
to say that Christ endured the essence of eternal death, 
and was the object of God's extreme hatred. 1 In so 
doing they might be very consistent and thoroughgoing 
as theorists, but the doctrine they thus taught is at 
once unscriptural and incredible. Let not St. Paul be 
made responsible for such extravagances. 

Under the Pauline law of redemption, the benefit 
resulting to men from Christ's mediation is in the first 
place to be conceived objectively. Thus, Christ having 
been made under law, redemption from legalism forth- 
with ensues as the objective privilege of humanity. 
That, in the view of God and in the religious history 
of the world, is the significance of Christ's subjection 
to legal ordinances. The era of legalism therewith 
ended, and the era of liberty began. Very different 
was the construction the Judaist would be inclined to 
put on the fact. Christ was circumcised, therefore the 

1 For examples, vide my Humiliation of Christ, Lecture vii. 
Note B. 



176 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

law must be perpetual, for lias not the Lord of the 
Church given it the sanction of His example ? so he 
would reason. On the contrary, replied St. Paul, the 
circumcision of Jesus was the death-knell of the law; 
He underwent the humiliation of subjection to law for 
the very purpose of putting an end to legal bondage; 
His experience in that respect was the ransom He paid 
for our emancipation. Similarly with all the other 
applications of the principle. Thus, because Christ was 
made sin for us by subjection to death, therefore, ipso 
facto, God was in Christ reconciling the world unto 
Himself, not imputing unto men their trespasses. So 
again, because Christ was made subject to temptation 
arising from the flesh, God condemned sin in the flesh, 
declared that the dominion of the flesh, as of the law, 
must take end, and be replaced by the benign dispensa- 
tion of the Spirit. In a word, at whatever point in our 
low estate Christ comes in contact with us, in life or 
in death, His touch exercises a magical emancipating 
influence, beneficently altering in relation to God the 
situation of the world. 

But this is not the whole truth. The objective change 
takes place with a view to a corresponding subjective one, 
without which the former would remain an abstract ideal 
and a barren benefit. The objective privilege must be 
subjectively realised. The position of sonship must be 
accompanied with the spirit of sonship, otherwise I shall 
be a slave of legalism, though living in the era of grace. 
The general amnesty which ensued from Christ having 
been made sin must be realised individually as a divine 
forgiveness of personal sin. So the apostle views the 



THE DEATH OF CHRIST 177 

matter, hence the stress which he everywhere lays on 
faith. For it is faith's function to transmute the ob- 
jective state of privilege into a subjective experience; to 
turn an ideal redemption into an actual one all along 
the line. Thus it is to be noted that the apostle is 
careful to represent Christ's sacrificial death as pro- 
pitiatory through faith. Codex A omits the words, but 
there can be no reasonable doubt as to their genuine- 
ness. The idea they express is so essential to the 
Pauline system of thought that even if they were not 
in the text they would have to be understood. It is 
through faith, and only for the believer, that Christ's 
death becomes effectively propitiatory, a real shield 
against the divine wrath. And so throughout the 
whole range of benefit. There must be appropriating 
faith if God's goodwill to men for Christ's sake is not 
to remain comparatively barren and inoperative. 

But not even yet have we got to the bottom of St. 
Paul's mind. I have not hitherto attempted to translate 
the principle of redemption obtained inductively from 
Pauline texts into the technical terms of theology. It 
is not imperative on an interpreter to undertake the 
task of translation, and he might excusably feel some 
measure of perplexity in an endeavour to fit such 
non-scriptural terms as ' c substitute ' ' and ' 4 representa- 
tive " into his exegetical results. But perhaps it is not 
far off the mark to say that while the idea of Christ as 
a substitute fits into the conception of His death as 
sacrificial, the idea of representation best accords with 
the whole group of texts from which I have gathered by 
induction the Pauline law of redemption. In these texts 



178 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

Christ appears as a central person in whom the human 
race is collected into a moral unity, having one respon- 
sibility and one interest, all things as far as possible 
common, even sin and righteousness, which one would 
think inseparable from personality, being treated as 
separable entities passing freely from one side to the 
other, sin to the sinless One, righteousness to the un- 
righteous. It is a case of objective identity. And the 
point I wish to make now is that this objective identity 
does not content St. Paul, not to speak of substitution 
which expresses too external a relation to have any 
chance of satisfying his mind. He cannot rest con- 
tent with anything short of subjective identity between 
Redeemer and redeemed, implying that Christ is not 
only by divine appointment and in outward lot, but in 
conscious sympathy, one with men, and on the other 
hand that they are one with Him in the same manner, 
making His experience their own. The former aspect 
of this subjective identity is not at all so prominent in 
the Epistles of St. Paul as in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
in which the sympathy of Christ is one of the great out- 
standing ideas, the whole earthly career of the Captain 
of salvation, not excluding His passion, being regarded 
as a curriculum of trial and suffering designed to develop 
in Him the spirit of compassion essential to the priestly 
vocation. But there are significant hints of the truth, 
as when the apostle adduces as a motive for Christian 
consideration of others the fact that Christ pleased not 
Himself, 1 urges the duty of mutual burden-bearing as a 

1 Bom. xv. 3, which, however, is proved not by facts taken from 
Christ's history, but by a quotation from a psalm. 



THE DEATH OF CHRIST 179 

fulfilment of the law of Christ, 1 and represents the Lord 
Jesus as becoming poor for our sakes. 2 There can be 
no doubt that he would include in the self -impoverish- 
ment of Jesus the whole state of humiliation as volun- 
tarily endured out of sympathy with men, though in 
mentioning the details of that state he presents the 
experience of Christ as something to which He was 
subjected rather than as something He voluntarily 
incurred. 

The other aspect of the subjective identity, the 
sympathy of believers with Christ, is made very pro- 
minent in St. Paul's teaching. It is all due to the 
action of faith, which, as he conceives it, cannot be re- 
stricted to the act of appropriating a benefit, but, like 
ivy clinging to a wall, lays hold of everything in the 
experience of Christ that is capable of being turned into 
a source of spiritual life. As Christ in love made His 
own every detail in our unredeemed state, so faith in 
the exercise of its native clinging power makes its own 
every critical stage in Christ's redeeming experience, His 
death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, and compels 
the redeemed man to re-enact these crises in his own 
spiritual history. ' ' I am crucified with Christ " ; 3 "if 
One died, then all died." 4 So St. Paul judged; so he 
viewed the matter; so jndge all like-minded. To put it 
so may appear to be making it a matter of opinion, a 
mere affair of personal moral idiosyncrasy. And there 
can be no question that many who pass for believers do 
not so judge, at least with anything like the earnestness 

i Gal. vi. 2. 2 2 Cor. viii. 9. 

s Gal. ii. 20. * 2 Cor. v. 14. 



180 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

of St. Paul, and the fact gives urgency to the inquiry as 
to the guarantees for ethical interests in the Pauline 
system. This will come up for consideration hereafter; 
meantime our business is to understand the apostle's 
own way of conceiving the believing man's relation to 
the Redeemer. And the thing to be noted is that in 
his view the function of faith is not merely to lay hold 
of a purchased benefit, but to impose a serious ethical 
task, that of dying to live. The fact suggests the query 
whether after all he so entirely overlooked the ethical 
aspect of Christ's own death as I said, and as on the 
surface it seems. If for us being crucified with Christ 
is an ethical process, must not crucifixion for Him also 
have had an ethical motive and end? So it naturally 
appears to us, but it does not follow that that view of 
the matter was much or at all present to the apostle's 
mind. We must take his ideas as they stand, and the 
fact is that he does not present the death of Christ and 
the co-dying of Christians under the same categories of 
thought. Death in Christ's case is physical, in the case 
of the believer mystical. The reason for dying in the 
one case is a transcendent theological one, in the other 
it is moral. On this account the dying-to-live to which 
the Christian is summoned loses the impetus arising 
from its being presented as the ideal and universal law 
of all true life, and is based on the weaker though 
not lower ground of a believer's sense of congruity and 
honour. 1 

In St. Paul's own case the new life lost nothing on 

1 Vide the late Professor Green's " Witness of God," Works, vol. iii. 
p. 230, where a purely ethical view of Christ's death is presented. 



THE DEATH OF CHRIST 181 

that account, partly because the moral ideal was opera- 
tive in his reason and conscience under disguise, but 
chiefly because the religious fervour and energy of his 
faith and the grateful devotion of his love were of them- 
selves all-powerful motives to Christlike living. The 
love of Christ who died for him ' 4 constrained ' ' him to 
die with Him and to live unto Him. Then his faith, 
with its power of vivid imaginative apprehension, laid 
Christ under contribution as a source of inspiration in 
every conceivable way. For it Christ was at once 
Vicar, Representative, and Brother blended together in 
indissoluble unity. There was therefore no risk in his 
case of justification taking place without sanctification, 
through faith laying hold of a certain benefit, objective 
righteousness, procured by Christ's death, and looking 
to nothing but its own private interest. His faith so 
contemplated Christ that He became at once and with 
equal certainty unto him believing, the ground of pardon 
and the source of a neAv life, Christ for him and Christ 
in him. And it was such faith as his own he had in 
view in all his discussions on justification. It was a 
yielding of the heart to the love of God and of Christ, 
and as such not merely the reception of the gift of 
salvation, but the entering into a mystic unity of life 
and of love with the source of salvation. 

It will be well for the interests both of theology and 
of religion that we earnestly endeavour to make this 
Pauline conception of faith our own. The consequence 
of losing sight of it in theology is that the living 
organism of Paulinism becomes resolved into a dead 
collection of scholastic dogmas standing side by side 



182 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

in a system, but having no vital affinities; and in 
religion that the unseemly spectacle is presented, in 
the case of many professed believers, of men looking to 
Christ for deliverance from guilt and wrath without 
devotion to Him as the Lord, or any trace of that 
all-pervading moral sensitiveness one expects to see in 
a Christian. 

These dangers are by no means imaginary. They 
beset us both as Protestants and as Evangelic Christians. 
As Protestants, because our bias in that capacity is to 
empty faith of all moral contents on which a doctrine 
of merit might be based; and, as controversy with 
Romanist theology leads the Protestant dogmatist to 
give a very exceptional prominence to justification, it 
may readily come to pass that he shall hardly find 
leisure or opportunity, to say nothing of inclination, to 
regard faith under any other aspect. As Evangelic 
Christians, because in that character we naturally 
interest ourselves much in those whom Jesus pitied, 
the lost, and having them in view speak often and with 
emphasis of Christ as the Sin-bearer, inviting them to 
lay their sins on Him by faith that they may have peace 
with God, and probably endeavouring to make the act of 
faith as easy as possible by use of such phrases as, ' 4 Only 
believe that Jesus died on the cross in your stead and 
you are saved." A natural and yet a serious mistake. 
For it is a short-sighted evangelism which looks only to 
the beginning of Christian life and makes no provision 
for its continuance and progress; which thinks of justi- 
fication and forgets sanctification ; which cares not about 
the quality of faith, provided only faith of some kind of 






THE DEATH OF CHRIST 183 

which Christ is the object be awakened, with as little 
delay as. possible; which deems it the one thing needful 
to bring every sinner into a state of conscious peace, 
instead of aiming at rousing the conscience of the sinful 
into energetic activity and leaving them, as we so safely 
may, in God's hands. The true, healthy evangelism is 
that which offers Christ to men's faith as He is offered 
in the New Testament, in Christ's own teaching and life, 
and in the apostolic Epistles, in all the aspects of His 
character and work. That cannot be done in a day or 
in a single address, still less in a single sentence. But 
it can be done by giving prominence now to this side of 
truth, now to that, always aiming at exhibiting the 
many-sided wisdom of God in the gospel. The result 
will be a faith to which Christ is wisdom by being 
at once righteousness, sanctification, and redemption; 
a Prophet, a Priest, and a King; a Christ for us and a 
Christ in us; a Christ who died in our stead, and a 
Christ with whom we die daily; a faith which will work 
through fellowship with Christ in His sufferings to the 
effect of making us Christlike as surely as it will rest 
upon Christ as the Saviour from sin. 1 

1 On the principle of learning from a foe evangelical ministers 
would do well to read the last lecture in Newman's Lectures on Justi- 
fication, on " Preaching the Gospel," which contains a very searching 
criticism of evangelical preaching. Newman brings against it a coun- 
tercharge of legalism in the form of trust in states and feelings. He 
remarks: " The true preaching of the gospel is to preach Christ, hut 
the fashion of the clay has been instead of this to attempt to convert by 
insisting on conversion," p. 373. 



184 st. paul's conception of Christianity 
note on professor everett's 

THE GOSPEL OF PAUL. 

The new work of Professor Everett on St. Paul's gospel is an entirely- 
new reading of the apostle's doctrine as to the import and effect of 
Christ's passion. The author discards the received doctrine that 
Christ redeemed man from sin by enduring its penalty, as without 
support, either in the practice of sacrifice among the Pagans, in the 
Levitical ritual, or in the New Testament properly interpreted. Hav- 
ing made this position good to his own satisfaction, by a preliminary 
inquiry, he proceeds to expound his own theory, which is to the 
following effect. So far was Christ from suffering the penalty 
of sin that the primary reference of His death was not to sin at 
all. Its immediate aim and effect was to abrogate the law, and only 
in the second place, and as the result of the primary effect, to bring 
about remission of sins. But how did it abrogate the law ? Thus : 
Christ died by crucifixion. But a crucified man, by the Jewish law, 
was "accursed" — that is, ceremonially unclean. And all who 
believed in the crucified Jesus as their Messiah become participators 
in his ceremonial uncleanness, and, as such, objects of abhorrence to 
orthodox Jews, deserving excommunication from synagogue and 
temple. They were "crucified" with their Christ, and, as such, 
freed from obligation to keep the law, for what claim had the law on 
outlawed, excommunicated men ? And, of course, the law being 
cancelled for them, the pardon of sin followed, for sin is not imputed 
where there is no law. This theory rests mainly on two texts 
in the Epistle to the Galatians, iii. 13 ; ii. 19-20. From the former 
the author draws the conclusion that, according to St. Paul, Christ 
was accursed because He was crucified, not crucified because He was 
accursed ; from the latter that every believer in Christ is through 
the law dead to the law, inasmuch as he is crucified with Christ. The 
law says, every crucified man is ceremonially unclean. So be it, 
replies the Christian ; I am crucified with Christ, therefore, with Him, 
ceremonially unclean ; therefore, free from legal claims, dead to the 
law by the law's own act. 

This is very ingenious, but critical doubts suggest themselves. 
My quarrel with the gifted author's interpretation chiefly concerns 
the second of the two proof texts. Against his interpretation of the 
first I have little to object. It is the fact that St. Paul affixes to the 
Saviour the epithet " accursed " simply because He suffered death 
in the form of crucifixion. Professor Everett states that he has 



THE DEATH OF CBRIST 185 

nowhere found this view recognised by theologians. I have myself 
indicated it without being aware that he, as I suppose, had antici- 
pated me. Thus far, therefore, I am happy to agree with him ; but 
in his exegesis of the second text I think he errs by taking what 
St. Paul says of himself (I am crucified with Christ) as true of all 
Christians, and by holding ceremonial uncleanness to have been a 
necessary result of Christian faith. If this had been so, then all 
believers in Jesus would have been forthwith cast out of the syna- 
gogue and temple. Were they ? On the contrary, the author of 
the Epistle to the Hebrews exhorts those to whom he writes to go 
forth without the camp bearing Christ's reproach, an exhortation 
which implies that they were still within, still clinging to synagogue 
and temple, and to companionship with unbelieving Jews. 

If the theory in question were true, and the interpretation of 
Gal. ii. 20 valid, another inference would follow. All Christians 
would have understood their position as outlawed or "excommuni- 
cated" men. There would have been no Judaistic party, no contro- 
versy about the perpetual obligation of the law. They would have 
been compelled to understand their position by the treatment they 
received from unbelieving Jews. Professor Everett thinks that 
St. Paul before his conversion persecuted Christians, "because the 
pollution that came from the cross rested also upon them." For 
the same reason all non-Christian Jews ought to have been perse- 
cutors, at least, to the extent of shunning with abhorrence all 
Christians ; so educating the latter to understand thoroughly that 
to be a believer in Jesus was to be outside the commonwealth of 
Israel, dead to the law and free from its claims. How came it, 
then, that so few understood this, and that St. Paul had to fight a 
hard battle to gain for such ideas currency or even toleration within 
the Church? 

The ideas expressed in Gal. ii. 19-20 are those of St. Paul, the 
Christian theologian, not of Saul, the Pharisee. They are, further, 
not ideas which St. Paul holds in common with Judaists, but which 
he cherishes as the advocate of a universal independent gospel, and 
employs in his controversy with Judaists, in opposition to their 
legalist propensities. The Judaists were not crucified with Christ 
in St. Paul's sense ; if they had been, the controversy would have been 
at an end. They also, through the law, had been dead to the law. 

The basis of Professor Everett's theory is too narrow. Gal. iii. 13 
is only one of several tests of co-ordinate importance. Another of 
these is Galatians iv. 4, where it is stated that Christ redeemed men 
from the law by coming under the law. The principle is, that at 



186 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

whatever point Christ touched man in His state of humiliation His 
touch had redemptive effect. And he touched us, not at one, but at 
many points. He came under the law, was circumcised, e.g., He 
endured death and so became in lot a sinner ; He died on the cross, 
and so tasted the curse ; in death His blood was shed, and so His death 
assumed the aspect of a sacrifice. All these points, and others not 
referred to, have to be taken into account in a scientific attempt to 
get at Paul's theory of atonement and his ways of thinking in 
general. This new contribution, while clever and interesting, makes 
the matter altogether too simple. 









CHAPTER X 

ADOPTION 

The idea of adoption, vioOeaia, 1 can hardly be said to 
occupy, in the Pauline system of thought, a place of im- 
portance co-ordinate with that of justification. It denotes 
a phase in the blessedness of the Justified, rather than 
an independent benefit of God's grace. It were, how- 
ever, a mistake on this account to overlook the idea in 
an exposition of St. Paul's conception of Christianity. 
The "adoption of sons" conferred on believers demands 
prominent recognition were it only because of its con- 
nection with the justified man's felicity. For that topic, 
with all that belonged to it, bulked largely in the mind 
of the apostle. He descants thereon with evident delight 
in various places in his Epistles, especially in JRomans 
v. 1-11, where he describes the justified state as one of 
triumphant joy, invincible buoyancy, and hopefulness ; 
of joy in an anticipated future glory, in a present full of 
tribulation, but fruitful in spiritual discipline through 
that very tribulation, in God Himself the summum 
bonum. One cannot but note here how radically optim- 
istic the apostle is ; how truly joy is for him the keynote 
of the Christian life. " Rejoicing in hope, patient in 

1 Gal. iv. 4 ; Bom. viii. 15. 
187 



188 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

tribulation, continuing instant in prayer" — so he pithily 
defines the Christian temper in the hortatory part of 
his Epistle to the Romans, 1 and with this definition the 
whole strain of his religious teaching is in sympathy. 
And it is well, on so important a matter, to point out 
that St. Paul is here not only consistent with himself, 
but, what is of even greater moment, in thorough accord 
with the doctrine of Jesus, as when in a memorable 
utterance He likened the disciple-circle to a bridal 
party. 2 The harmony between apostle and Master in 
this respect points to and rests on a deeper harmony, an 
essential agreement in their respective conceptions of 
the relations between God and man. 

St. Paul's letters being occasional and fragmentary, 
brief rapid utterances on urgent topics not necessarily 
or even probably revealing the full-orbed circle of his 
religious thought, it need not surprise us that we find 
nowhere in them a formal doctrine concerning God and 
man and their mutual relations. We can only expect 
hints, words which imply more than they say. Such a 
word is vloOeaia. It has for its presupposition Christ's 
characteristic conception of God as Father, and of men 
as His sons. Familiarity with Christ's doctrine of the 
Fatherhood, and more or less complete insight into and 
sympathy with its import, is to be presumed in all New 
Testament writers, who all use the new name for God 
which Jesus made current. The insight and sympathy 
need not be conceived of as complete : it is no reproach 
to the apostles to think it possible that in their insight 

1 Bom. xii. 12 ; with which compare 1 Thess. v. 16, 17. 

2 Matt. ix. 15. 



ADOPTION 189 

into the spiritual essence of God, they came behind the 
only-begotten Son. 1 That St. Paul did so this very word 
vlodeala may seem to prove. In Christ's doctrine God 
is always a Father, a Father even to the unthankful and 
evil, even to unfilial prodigals. In the apostle's doctrine, 
as commonly understood, God becomes Father by an act 
of adoption graciously exercised towards persons pre- 
viously occupying a lower position than that of sons. 

The difference is to a certain extent real, and it must 
be confessed that sonship in St. Paul's way of putting it 
appears an external and artificial thing compared to the 
aspect it assumes in the genial presentation of Jesus. 
Yet the divergence must not be exaggerated. For what- 
ever may be said as to the form under which he con- 
ceives it, there can be no question that, for the apostle, 
the filial standing of a believer is a very real and 
precious thing. It is as real as if it were based on 
nature, and not on an arbitrary act of adoption. And it 
is by no means self-evident that the apostle thought of 
men as, antecedent to that act, in no sense sons of God. 
For we must note the connection in which he introduces 
the idea. In both the texts the state of adoption stands 
in antithesis to the state of legalism. The privilege 
consists in one being made a son who was formerly a 
slave. " Wherefore thou art no more a slave (8ov\os~) 
but a son." 2 But the two states are not absolutely 
exclusive. The slave might be a son who had not yet 

1 Vide Dr. Fairbairn in Christ in Modern Theology, p. 293, on this 
point. 

2 Gal. iv. 7. In Romans viii. 15, the Spirit of sonship is opposed 
to the spirit of bondage (5ov\elai). 



190 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

attained to his rights. So St. Paul actually conceived 
the matter when he wrote the Epistle in which the idea 
of adoption is first broached. Those who through the 
mission of Christ attain to the position of sons had been 
sons all along, only differing nothing from slaves because 
of their subjection to legalism. 1 The apostle had in view 
chiefly the religious condition of Israel under law and 
gospel — God's son from the first, 2 but subjected to legal 
ordinances, till Christ came and brought in the era of 
grace. But may not his thought be generalised so as to 
embrace the whole of mankind? Are not all men God's 
sons, reduced to a state of slavery under sin, and wait- 
ing consciously or unconsciously for the hour of their 
emancipation out of servitude into sonship by the grace 
of their heavenly Father? 

It is only when we view the Pauline idea of adoption 
in connection with the antithesis between sonship and 
servitude that we can properly appreciate either its 
theologicial import or its religious value. Looked at 
apart therefrom, as an abstract theological term, the 
word may very readily foster inadequate conceptions of 
the Christian's privilege of sonship, and even give a legal 
aspect to his whole relation to God. It cannot be 
denied, that, to a certain extent, such results have 
actually followed the permanent use in theology of an 
expression which, as originally employed, was charged 
with a strong anti-legal bias. St. Paul's authority has 
gained currency in theology for a word which, as 
understood by theologians, has proved in no small 

1 Gal. iv. 1 : ovbtv 8ia.(p4pei 8ov\ov. 

2 Bom. ix. 4 : " Israelites whose is the adoption " (ylodeala). 






ADOPTION 191 

measure antagonistic to his religious spirit. The fact 
raises the question whether it would not be wise to allow 
the category of "adoption" to fall into desuetude, and to 
express the truth about the relation of man to God in 
terms drawn from our Lord's own teaching. Words 
used with a controversial reference do not easily retain 
their original connotation when the conflict to which 
they owe their origin has passed away. The primary 
antithesis is lost sight of, and new antitheses take its 
place. So in the case of vloOeaia. In the apostle's 
mind the antithesis was between a son indeed, and a son 
who is nothing better than a servant ; in the mind of 
the systematic theologian it becomes sonship of a sort 
versus creaturehood, or subjecthood, the original relation 
of man to God as Creator and Sovereign. We are in a 
wholly different world of thought, while using the same 
phrases. 

Adoption, in St. Paul's view, is, not less than justifica- 
tion, an objective transaction. It denotes the entrance 
into a new relation, being constituted sons. Adoption as 
a divine act must be distinguished from the spirit of 
adoption, which is the subjective state of mind answering 
to the objective relation. The two things are not only 
distinguishable, but separable. All who are justified, all 
who believe in Jesus, however weak their faith, are in 
the Pauline sense sons of God, have received the 
adoption. But not all who believe in Christ have the 
Spirit of sonship. On the contrary, the fewest have it, 
the fewest realise their privilege, and live up to it ; the 
greater number of Christians are more or less under the 
influence of a legal, fear-stricken spirit, which prevents 



192 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

them from regarding God as indeed their Father. The 
Spirit of sonship is therefore not identical with sonship ; 
it is rather one of the benefits to which sonship gives 
right, and which, in a normal healthy state of the 
Christian life, follow in its train. 

The really important contribution made by St. Paul 
to the doctrine of God's Fatherhood or man's sonship 
does not lie in his formal idea of adoption, but in the 
emphasis with which he insists on the filial spirit as that 
which becomes the believer in Jesus. In this whole mat- 
ter of sonship we have to do, not with theological meta- 
physics, but with vital, ethical, and religious interests. 
What do we mean when we tell men they are sons of 
God? Not to flatter them or amuse them with idle 
phrases, or to teach them a pantheistic doctrine of the 
essential identity of the human and the divine. We 
mean to awaken in them an exacting sense of obligation, 
and a blessed sense of privilege. That was what Christ 
meant when He said to publicans and sinners, as He did 
in effect : Ye are God's sons. The statement signified : 
Because ye are sons ye may not live as ye have been 
living. God's sons must be godlike. Because ye are 
sons ye may cherish high hopes in spite of your degrada- 
tion. If ye return in penitence to your Father's house, 
He will receive you with open arms, as if ye had never 
done wrong ; nay, with a warmer welcome, because ye 
are erring children returned. St. Paul deprived himself 
of the opportunity of enforcing the doctrine of sonship 
on the side of duty by failing to use the relation as one 
applicable to men in general ; though this cannot be said 
without qualification, if we accept the discourse on 



ADOPTION 193 

Mars' Hill as indicating the gist of what he said to the 
men of Athens. " Forasmuch as we are the offspring 
of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like 
unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's 
device." 1 That is, it does not become God's sons to be 
grovelling idolaters ; an excellent example of the noblesse 
oblige argument. But whatever historic value may be 
assigned to the Mars' Hill incident, it is certain at least 
that St. Paul did most vigorously enforce the filial dig- 
nity and privilege of Christians, and in connection there- 
with the duty incumbent on all believers to take out of 
their filial standing all the comfort and inspiration it was 
fitted to yield. Nothing is more fundamental in Pauline 
hortatory ethics than the exhortation : Stand fast in 
sonship and its liberties and privileges. 

What then, according to the apostle Paul, are the 
privileges of the filial state ? The catalogue embraces 
at least these three particulars — (1) freedom from the 
law ; (2) endowment with the Spirit of sonship ; (3) a 
right to the future inheritance, heirship. All these ben- 
efits are specified in the place in the Epistle to the 
Galatians which contains the apostle's earliest statement 
on the subject. That the privilege of sonship involves 
emancipation from the law is plainly taught in the 
words : " To redeem them that were under the law, that 
we might receive the adoption of sons." The second 
benefit is mentioned in the following verse : " And 
because ye are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son 
into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." The mission 
of the Spirit of sonship was a natural and necessary 
1 Acts xvii. 29. 



194 ST. PAUL'S CONCEPTION OP CHRISTIANITY 

sequel to the act of adoption. Of what avail were it to 
make one a son in standing unless he could be made to 
feel at home in the house ? In order that sonship may 
be real, there must be a spirit answering to the state, 
that the adopted one may be no longer a slave in feel- 
ing, but a son indeed. The third benefit, right to the 
patrimonial estate, is pointed at in the words, " But if a 
son, then an heir, through God." 

With regard to the first of these three privileges of 
sonship, St. Paul is very much in earnest. That the 
believer in Jesus is free from the law he again and again 
asserts. No better indication of the strength of his 
conviction on this point could be desired than the fact 
of his constructing no fewer than three allegorical argu- 
ments to establish or exhibit pictorially his view, those, 
viz., of the bondwoman and freewoman, the two hus- 
bands, and the veil of Moses. These allegories show 
at once what need there was for labouring the point, 
how thoroughly the apostle's mind had grasped it, so as 
to be fertile and inventive in modes of presentation, and 
how much he had the subject at heart, so as to be proof 
against the weariness of iteration. 

In his doctrine of emancipation from the law, St. Paul 
had in view the whole Mosaic law without exception. 
The whole law as a code of statutes written on stone or 
in a book, put in the form of an imperative : thou shalt 
do this, thou shalt not do that, with penalties annexed, 
is, he holds, abolished for the Christian. Whatever 
remains after the formal act of abrogation, remains for 
some other reason than because it is in the statute-book. 
Some parts of the law may remain true for all time as 



ADOPTION 195 

revelation ; some precepts may commend themselves to 
the human conscience in perpetuity as holy, just, and 
good ; but these precepts will come to the Christian in a 
new form, not as laws written on stone slabs, but as laws 
written on the heart, as laws of the spirit of a new life. 
Summed up in love, they will be kept not by constraint, 
but freely ; not out of regard to threatened penalties, 
but because the love commanded is the very spirit which 
rules in the heart. 

One who dared to represent the state of the believer 
in Jesus as one of freedom from the Mosaic law, was not 
likely to have much hesitation in representing Christians 
as free from the commandments of men. This is rather 
taken for granted than expressly asserted. Of course all 
those passages in which St. Paul teaches that Christians 
are not bound by scruples as to meats and drinks point 
in this direction. And the general principle is very 
adequately stated in the words : " Ye are bought with 
a price ; become not ye the servants of men." 1 For 
Rabbinical traditions, to which Saul the Pharisee had 
been a slave, Paul the Christian had no respect what- 
ever. Even the Levitical law which appointed the 
sacred seasons and their appropriate ritual he charac- 
terised as " weak and poverty-stricken elements," to 
which it were as foolish in Christians to turn again, as 
it would be for a full-grown man to go back to an 
infant's school to learn the alphabet. 2 But for the 

1 1 Cor. vii. 23. 

2 There has recently been a tendency among interpreters to revive 
the patristic view of a-rotxeia, and to find in the word a reference to 
the heavenly bodies, sun, moon, and stars, conceived of as living 



196 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

Rabbinical additions to the law he employed a much 
more contemptuous term. He called them orcvftaXa, 1 
mere rubbish, never of any use save to puff up with 
empty pride, and now rejected by him, as a Christian, 
with loathing. 

St. Paul found great difficulty in getting Christians to 
understand this doctrine of the liberty of a believer in 
all its comprehensiveness, and to sympathise with his 
passionate earnestness in maintaining it. He found 
men everywhere ready to relapse into legalism, and had 
thus occasion to address to many the warning, " return 
not again to the yoke of bondage." The history of the 
Church abundantly proves that there is no part of the 
apostle's teaching which the average Christian finds 
harder to understand. In every age, except at creative 
epochs like the Reformation, the legal spirit exercises 
extensive sway even over those who imagine themselves 
to be earnest supporters of Pauline doctrine, and em- 
phatically evangelical in their piety, causing them to be 
afraid of new spiritual movements, though these may be 
but the new wine of the kingdom, and obstinately and 
indiscriminately conservative of old customs and tradi- 
tions, though these may have lost all life and meaning. 
Such timidity and blind clinging to the past are not 
evangelic ; they bear the unmistakable brand of legalism. 
Where the Spirit of the Lord is in any signal measure, 

beings, by which the dates of holy seasons were fixed. Devotees 
who scrupulously observed holy times might very appropriately be 
represented as enslaved to the heavenly luminaries by whose posi- 
tions these times were determined. This view is favoured by Lipsius 
in Hand-Commentar. 
i Phil. iii. 8. 



ADOPTION 197 

there will be liberty from bondage to old things, and 
from fear of new things; power to discern between good 
and evil, and courage to receive the good from whatever 
quarter it may come ; there, in short, is not the servile 
spirit of fear, but the manly spirit of power and of love 
and of a sound mind. Such was the spirit of St. Paul, 
and it is much to be desired that his religious temper 
may ever be associated with profession of faith in his 
theological doctrine. The divorce of Pauline theology 
from the Pauline spirit is to be deplored as tending to 
create a prejudice not only against Paulinism, but even 
against what St. Paul loved more — evangelic piety ; 
even against the word "evangelical." Yet what the 
Church really needs is not less evangelic life, but a 
great deal more, with all the breadth, strength, freedom, 
and creative energy that are the true signs of the pres- 
ence in her midst of the spirit of sonship. 1 

2. This spirit is the second benefit which should ac- 
company, and naturally springs out of, the true state of 
adoption. It is defined by certain attributes which may 
be taken as the marks of its presence. St. Paul describes 
it first, generically, as the Spirit of God's own Son, that 
is, of Jesus Christ. " Because ye are sons, He hath sent 
the Spirit of His Son into your hearts." 2 This might be 
taken as a summary reference to the history of Jesus as 
the source of the most authentic and reliable information 

1 Harnack (Dogmengeschichte, i. 129, 3te Aufl.) says : "Paulinism 
has acted as a ferment in the history of dogma, a basis it has never 
been." But if it has not been a basis in theology, still less has it in 
its religious spirit exercised a steady ascendency, to the great loss of 
the Church. 

2 Gal. iv. 6. 



198 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

as to the true nature of the spirit of sonship. We may 
conceive the apostle here saying in effect : If you want 
to know how the filial spirit behaves and manifests 
itself, look at Christ, and see how He bore Himself 
towards God. His personal piety is the model for 
us all : go to His school and learn from Him. Is this 
really what he had in his mind? Or is it merely an 
ontological proposition he offers us, to this effect : the 
Spirit who dwells in those who have a genuine filial 
consciousness is a Spirit sent by God and owned by 
Christ : the Spirit that proceedeth from the Father and 
the Son ? I cannot believe it. The apostle's thought is 
dominated here throughout by the ethical interest. He 
thinks of the Spirit in the believer as a Spirit whose 
characteristic cry is Father, expressive of trust, love, 
loyal submission, and childlike repose. And when he 
calls that Spirit Christ's, he does not mean merely that 
He is Christ's property, but that He is Christ's own 
spiritual self. The Spirit of God's Son whom God sends 
into Christian hearts, and who reveals His presence by 
the child's cry, " Father," is the Spirit who in Him ever 
uttered that cry in clearest tone and with the ideal 
fulness of import. 

We may, therefore, find in the expression, " The Spirit 
of His Son," an appeal to the evangelic history, and the 
recognition of Christ's personal relation to God as the 
norm of all Christian piety. How much knowledge of 
the earthly life of Jesus this presupposes cannot be de- 
termined. It maybe taken for granted that St. Paul was 
aware that " Father " was Christ's chosen and habitual 
name for God. It may be regarded as equally certain 



ADOPTION 199 

that he knew the characteristics of Christ's personal 
religion to be such as justified reference to Him as the 
model Son, the pattern of filial consciousness as it ought 
to be. What historical vouchers for these characteristics 
were known to him we cannot say. We are not entitled 
to assume that he was acquainted with the prayer which 
begins, " I thank Thee, O Father," 2 wherein the filial 
consciousness of Jesus found classic expression. But we 
certainly are entitled to affirm that there is no ground 
for the hypothesis recently put forth by Pfleiderer 
that this prayer is a composition of the Evangelists, 
made up of elements drawn from St. Paul's Epistles, or 
suggested by Paul's missionary career. 2 That such an 
utterance should fall from the lips of Jesus is intrinsi- 
cally probable if the two inferences drawn from St. 
Paul's statement be allowed. If Jesus ever called God 
Father and bore Himself towards God so as to give the 
ideal expression to the filial consciousness, how natural 
that he should say in words on a suitable occasion what 
His whole life said in deed ! Pfleiderer's scepticism is 
based on the assumption that St. Paul, not Jesus, was 
the originator of the religion of sonship. The assump- 
tion is contradicted by St. Paul's own testimony in the 
place before us, where he calls the Spirit of sonship the 
Spirit of Christ the Son. St. Paul being witness, it was 
Jesus who first introduced into the world the religious 
spirit whose characteristic cry Godwards is " Father." 
It does not belong to my present task as the inter- 

" ! Matt. xi. 25-27 ; Luke x. 21, 23. 

2 Vide his Urchristenthum, pp. 445, 446, and for a criticism of his 
view, vide my Apologetics, p. 454. 



200 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

preter of Paulinism to offer an exposition, however brief, 
of the classic filial utterance of Jesus. 1 But it is com- 
petent to point out that the account given in the Pauline 
literature of the filial spirit in its practical manifestations 
is in full sympathy with the mind of Christ. The 
apostle sets forth the spirit of sonship as a spirit of trust 
in Romans viii. 15, where it is put in contrast with the 
spirit of fear characteristic of legalism. In other places 
he gives prominence to liberty as an attribute of the 
Spirit of sonship. The most striking text in this con- 
nection is 2 Corinthians iii. 17 : " Where the Spirit of 
the Lord — liberty." It is a great word worthy to be 
associated with that of Jesus : " Ye shall know the 
truth, and the truth shall make you free," most com- 
prehensive in scope, and susceptible of wide and varying 
application. Where the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of 
sonship, is, there is liberty even from the law of God, as 
a mere external commandment, with its ominous " thou 
shalt not " ; there is liberty from all commandments of 
men, whether written statutes or unwritten customs ; 
there is liberty from the dead letter of truth which 
conceals from view the eternal spiritual meaning; there 
is liberty from the legal temper ever embodying 
itself in new forms and striving to bring human souls 
under its thraldom ; there is liberty from the bondage 
of religious fear, which has wrought such havoc as the 
parent of superstition and will worship ; there, finally, is 
liberty from fear with regard to the ills of life, and the 
uncertainties of to-morrow : for to one who knows God 
as a Father, what can there be to be afraid of ? " If God 
1 Vide The Kingdom of God, chap. vii. 



ADOPTION 201 

be for us, who (or what) shall be against us?" 1 triumph- 
antly asks St. Paul, echoing the thought of Jesus: "Fear 
not, little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give 
you the kingdom." 

Here is an ample liberty, though the description is 
by no means exhaustive. But is it not too ample? men 
anxious for the interests of morality or of ecclesiastical 
institutions may be inclined to ask. The tendency has 
always been to be jealous of Christian liberties as broadly 
asserted by our Lord and St. Paul, and to subject them 
to severe restrictions lest they should become revolu- 
tionary and latitudinarian. Though not straitened either 
in Christ or in Paul, the Church has been much strait- 
ened in her own spirit. This jealousy of liberty has been 
to a large extent uncalled for, and has simply prevented 
the Church from enjoying to the full her privilege. 
That liberty may degenerate into licence is true. But 
where the Spirit of the Lord is, no such abuse can take 
place. For the Spirit of the Lord is a Holy Spirit as well 
as a free Spirit, and He will lead Christians to assert 
their liberty only for holy ends. What risk, e.g., is 
there to the interests of holiness in the Pauline anti- 
nomianism? The law of God stands no more whip in 
hand saying, " Do this " ; no, but the law of God is 
written on the heart, and the commandment is kept 
because it no longer is grievous by reason of the terrify- 
ing thunder and the threatened penalty. The only 
difference is that obedience is made easy instead of 
irksome. Christ's yoke is easy, and His burden is light. 
Heavy is the burden when we carry the sense of duty 
1 Bom. viii. 31. 



202 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

like the slabs on which the Decalogue was written on 
our back, but light is the burden when law is trans- 
muted into love, and duty consists in becoming like our 
Father in heaven. What risk to the interests of religion 
in the Pauline disregard of ritual, in his doctrine that 
circumcision and everything of like nature is nothing? 
It is but getting rid of dead works in order the better to 
serve the living God, with a truly reasonable, spiritual 
service, in which all the powers of the inner man 
earnestly take part. What risk, finally, to the peace 
of the sacred commonwealth in the decided assertion of 
the liberty of the Christian conscience from the bondage 
of petty scrupulosity, when the Spirit of Jesus, who 
dwells in all the sons of God, is not only a Spirit of 
freedom, but not less emphatically a Spirit of charity, 
disposing all who are under its guidance in all things to 
consider their neighbour for their good unto edification, 
and also a Spirit of wisdom which can discern where 
concession and forbearance are for the good and edifica- 
tion of the whole body of Christ? 

This reference to the body of Christ recalls to mind an 
important result flowing, according to Pauline teaching, 
from the Spirit of sonship. It is its tendency to remove 
barriers to Christian fellowship arising out of small mat- 
ters to which the legal spirit attaches undue value. How 
closely sonship and brotherhood were connected in the 
apostle's mind appears from the fact that on the first men- 
tion of the sonship of Christians in Gf-alatians iii. 26, he 
proceeds immediately after to speak of the new society 
based on the Christian faith as one wherein is neither Jew 
nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female, 



ADOPTION 203 

but all are one in Christ Jesus. It is easy to find the 
missing link which connects the two topics. In St. 
Paul's view, as we know, the first fundamental privilege 
of sonship is emancipation from the law. But the law 
was the great barrier between Jews and Gentiles ; that 
removed, there was nothing to prevent them from being 
united in a Christian brotherhood on equal terms. The 
partition wall being taken down, the two separated 
sections of humanity could become one in a new society, 
having for its motto, Christ all and in all. The accom- 
plishment of this grand union, in which St. Paul took 
the leading part, was the first great historical exem- 
plification of the connection between the Spirit of 
sonship and the Spirit of catholicity. It is obviously 
not the only possible one. The tendency of the legal 
spirit at all times is to multiply causes of separation, 
both in religious faith and in religious practice : in the 
former, increasing needlessly the number of funda- 
mentals ; in the latter, erecting every petty scruple about 
meats and drinks, and social customs, and forms of 
worship, to the dignity of a principle dividing from all 
whose practice is nonconformist. The legal spirit is 
essentially anti-catholic and separatist, and manifests 
itself as such in a thousand different ways. On the 
other hand, the filial spirit is not less essentially catholic : 
it craves for fellowship with all who are sons of God by 
faith in Jesus Christ, and has the impulse to sweep away 
the manifold artificial barriers which dogmatic, prag- 
matic, self-asserting legalism has set up to the dividing 
of those who are one in Christ. What a change would 
come over the face of Christendom if the Spirit of adop- 



204 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

tion were poured out in abundant measure on all who 
bear the Christian name. 

3. The third benefit accruing from sonship is heirship. 
" If a son then an heir ; " 1 " if children, then heirs ; heirs 
of God, and joint heirs with Christ." 2 What is the inherit- 
ance, and when do the sons enter on it ? Are they ex- 
pectants only, or are they in possession already ? Looking 
to the connection of thought in the Epistle to the Gala- 
tians the sons, according to St. Paul, are in possession, at 
least, in part. The adoption means that a son who in child- 
hood differed nothing from a servant, becomes a son in- 
deed at the time appointed. Objectively, that time arrived 
when Christ came ; subjectively, it arrived then for all who, 
like St. Paul, understood the significance of the Christian 
era. In natural life the heir enters on his inheritance at 
his father's death. God does not die, and there is no need 
to wait on that account. Rather Christians enter on their 
inheritance when they begin truly to live. The inherit- 
ance consists in autonomy, spiritual freedom ; in spiritual- 
mindedness, which is life and peace ; in spiritualbuoyancy, 
victorious over all the ills of life, fearing nothing, rejoic- 
ing even in tribulation because of the healthful disci- 
pline and confirmation of character it brings. Truly no 
imaginary possessions, genuine treasures of the soul ! 

Yet, here, according to St. Paul, as we gather from the 
place in Romans, the Christian inherits only in part ; he is 
largely an expectant, " saved by hope." 3 For the present 
is a scene of suffering. Doubtless the tribulations of the 
present afford the son of God opportunity for showing 
his heroic temper, and verifying the reality of His sonship. 
1 Gal. iv. 7. 2 Bom. viii. 17. 3 Ibid. viii. 24. 



ADOPTION 205 

But on the most optimistic view of the present it must be 
admitted that groaning is a large element in human life. 
The Christian is often obliged to say to himself, It is a 
weary world. Even the divine Spirit immanent in him 
sympathetically shares in his groaning. 1 What is wrong ? 
There is wrong within, defective spiritual vitality. 2 There 
is wrong in the body ; it is still even for the redeemed 
man a body of death, and he will not be an effectively, 
fully-re deemed man till his body has shared in the 
redemptive process. 3 There is wrong, finally, in the 
outside world, in the very inanimate, or lower animate 
creation, needing and crying for redemption from vanity, 
and travailing in birth pangs which shall issue in the 
appearance of the new heavens and of the new earth. 4 
In view of all these things, St. Paul seems half inclined 
to cancel his earlier doctrine of the era of sonship dating 
from the birth of Christ, and, regarding Christians as 
still sons who differ nothing from a slave, to project the 
v'oOeata forward to the era of consummation. For he 
applies the term, we note, to that era whereof the redemp- 
tion of the body is the most outstanding feature and 
symbol. " Waiting for the adoption, the redemption of 
the body." 5 In some codices the word vloOealav is 
omitted, 6 why, we can only conjecture. The copyists may 
havethoughtit strange that there should be two adoptions, 
or that a term denoting an imperfect kind of sonship 
should be applied to the final perfect state, wherein sonship 

1 Bom. viii. 26. 

2 Ibid. viii. 23. The believer has only the first-fruits of the Spirit ; 

TTjV 0LTrapXV v T °V TPeVfAdTOS. 

3 Ibid. viii. 23. * Ibid. viii. 19-22. 
5 Ibid. viii. 23, last clause. 6 D, F, G, omit it. 



206 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

shall be raised to its highest power, its very ideal realised 
in fellowship with Christ in filial glory. No wonder they 
stumbled at the expression. For, in truth, the use of the 
word by the apostle in reference to the future consumma- 
tion raises the doubt whether we have not been on the 
wrong track in imagining that when he speaks of the 
vlodecria in his Epistles, he has the Greek or the Roman 
practice of adoption in view. That use, at all events, 
shows that if, when it first entered into his mind to 
avail himself of the term, he was thinking of adoption as 
practised by either of the two classic nations, he was 
constrained by his Christian convictions to employ it in a 
manner which invested it with a new, nobler sense than 
it had ever before borne. Adoption in Roman law 
denoted the investment of persons formerly not sons with 
some measure of filial status ; vloOecria in St. Paul's 
vocabulary means the solemn investment of persons 
formerly sons in an imperfect degree with a sonship 
worthy of the name, realising the highest possibilities of 
filial honour and privilege. 1 

1 Usteri (Paulinischer Lehrbegriff) thinks that as St. Paul uses the 
word the idea of adoption is not to be pressed. Vide note on vlodeaia 
at p. 191 of the work referred to. 



CHAPTER XI 

WITHOUT AND WITHIN 

We have now gained a tolerably definite view of St. 
Paul's way of conceiving the good that came to the world 
through Jesus Christ, that is to say, of his soteriological 
system of ideas. Our next task, in order, must be to 
make ourselves acquainted with the apologetic buttresses 
of that system. The Pauline apologetic, as we have 
already learned, relates to three topics : ethical interests, 
the true function of the law, and the prerogatives of 
Israel. We have now, therefore, to consider in detail 
what the apostle had to say on each of these topics in 
succession, and the value of his teaching as a defence 
against possible attacks in any of these directions. 

The first of the three is a wide theme, and in the 
highest degree important. In reference to every religion 
it is a pertinent and fundamentally important question : 
What guarantees does it provide for right conduct ? No 
religion has a right to take offence at such a question, or 
to claim exemption from interrogation on that score. 
Least of all Pauline Christianity ; for, while Christianity 
as taught by Christ is conspicuously ethical in its drift, 
the same faith as presented by St. Paul seems on the 
face of it to be religious or even theological rather than 

207 



208 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

ethical, so that the question as to moral tendency is in 
this case far from idle or impertinent. The point raised, 
it will be observed, does not concern the personal rela- 
tion of the teacher to morality, about which there is no 
room for doubt, but the provision he has made in his 
doctrinal system for an interest which he obviously feels 
to be vital. Theoretic failure is quite conceivable even 
in the case of one who has a burning passion for 
righteousness. 

Paulinism offers two guarantees for holiness in the 
Christian: the moral dynamic of faith, and the influence 
of the Holy Grhost. These, therefore, we shall consider, 
each in a separate chapter, with a view to ascertain their 
efficiency, and how they arise out of the system. 

Despite the most circumspect theoretic provision, it is 
a familiar experience that the reality of conduct falls far 
below the ideal. The Christian religion is no exception 
to this observation, and the devout soul may well be 
moved to ask, Why, with such guarantees as the above 
named, should it be so ? The question did not escape 
St. Paul's attention, and his thoughts about it shall be 
gathered together under the head of the Flesh as a 
hindrance to holiness. 

It will help us to understand the doctrine of the 
apostle on these three themes if in a preliminary chapter 
we endeavour to ascertain what was the precise relation 
in his mind between the two sides of his soteriology as 
set forth in Romans i.-v. on the one hand, and in 
Romans vi.-viii. on the other. It is a question as to 
the connection in the apostle's thought between the 
objective and the subjective, the ideal and the real, the 



WITHOUT AND WITHIN 209 

religious and the moral. This topic forms the subject 
of the present chapter. 

On this question, then, various views may be and 
have been entertained. 

1. The crudest possible solution of the problem would 
be to find in the two sections of the Epistle to the 
Romans two incompatible theories of salvation, the 
forensic and the mystical, the latter cancelling or 
modifying the former as found, on second thoughts, to 
be unsatisfactory and inadequate. This hypothesis, 
though not without advocates, 1 can hardly commend 
itself on sober reflection. That St. Paul, like other 
thinkers, might find it needful to modify his views, and 
even to retract opinions discovered to be ill founded, is 
conceivable. But we should hardly look for retractations 
in the same writing, especially in one coming so late in 
the day. It may be taken for granted that the apostle 
was done with his experimental or apprentice thinking 
in theology before he indited the Epistle to the Romans, 
and that when he took his pen in hand to write that 
letter, he was not as one feeling blindly his way, but 
knew at the outset what he meant to say. He had 
thought out by that time the whole matter of objective 
and subjective righteousness; and if he keep the two 
apart in his treatment, it is not tentatively and pro- 
visionally, but as believing that each represents an 
important aspect of truth. 

1 Ritschl's treatment of St. Paul's view in Die Entstehung der Alt- 
katholischen Kirche, 2te Aufi., looks in this direction ; vide pp. 87-90. 
Vide also his more recent work, Die Christliche Lehre von der 
Bechtfertigung und Versohnung, ii. p. 224. 



210 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

2. We may go to the opposite extreme, and find in the 
two sections not two incompatible theories, one super- 
seding the other, not even two distinct while compati- 
ble aspects, but one train and type of thought running 
through the whole. And as the two parts of the Epistle 
certainly seem to speak in different dialects, it comes to 
be a question of interpreting either in terms of the other 
by ingenious exegesis. Which of the two apparently dif- 
ferent types of thought is to be resolved into the other 
will depend on the interpreter's theological bias. One 
would gladly find in St. Paul's writings everywhere, and 
only, objective righteousness; another welcomes not less 
eagerly whatever tends to prove that subjective right- 
eousness is the apostle's great theme. The latter bias, 
a natural reaction against the former, is the one most 
prominent in modern theology. Those under its influ- 
ence read the doctrine of Romans vi.-viii. into Romans 
i.-v., and find in the Epistle one uniform doctrine of 
justification by faith as the promise and potency of per- 
sonal righteousness, and one doctrine of atonement, not 
by substitute but by sample, Christ becoming a redeem- 
ing power in us through our mystic fellowship with Him 
in His life, death, and resurrection. Reasons have 
already been given why this view cannot be accepted. 1 

3. In the two foregoing hypotheses an earlier type of 
thought is sacrificed for a later, either by St. Paul him- 
self or by his modern interpreter. A third conceivable 
attitude towards the problem is that of sturdily refusing 
assent to either of these modes of dealing with it, and 
insisting that the two aspects of the apostle's teaching 

i Vide p. 157 1 



WITHOUT AND WITHIN 211 

shall be allowed to stand side by side, both valid, yet 
neither capable of explaining, any more than of being 
explained into, the other. One occupying this attitude 
says in effect: I find in the Epistle to the Romans a 
doctrine of gratuitous justification, to the effect that God 
pardons man's sin, and regards him as righteous, out of 
respect to Christ's atoning death. I find also, further 
on in the same Epistle, a doctrine of regeneration or 
spiritual renewal, to the effect that a man who believes 
in Christ, and is baptized into Him, dies to the old life 
of sin, and rises to a new life of personal righteousness. 
These two things, justification and regeneration, are two 
acts of divine grace, sovereign and independent. The 
one does not explain or guarantee the other. There is 
no nexus between them other than God's gracious will. 
Whom He justifies He regenerates, and that is all that 
can be said on the matter. There is no psychological 
bond insuring, or even tending to insure, that the justified 
man shall become a regenerate or righteous man. Faith 
is not such a bond. Faith's action is confined to justifi- 
cation; it has no proper function in regeneration; here 
baptism takes the place which faith has in justification. 
4. So purely external a view of the relation between 
justification and regeneration, as handled in the Pauline 
literature, is not likely to be accepted as the last word, 
though spoken by a master of biblical theology, even by 
the most admiring of disciples. Accordingly, a fourth 
attitude falls to be discriminated; that recently taken up 
by Dr. Stevens, in his excellent work on The Pauline 
Theology, who in many respects is a follower of Dr. 
Weiss, the chief exponent of the theory stated in the 



212 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

foregoing paragraph. The basis of the view espoused by 
this writer is the distinction between form and essence in 
Pauline thought. He holds that in form St. Paul's con- 
ception of justification is forensic, and that any attempt 
to eliminate this aspect from his system must be regarded 
as an exegetical violence. As a mere matter of historical 
exegesis, it is beyond doubt, in his judgment, that the 
apostle taught the doctrine of an objective righteousness. 
But this does not preclude the question, What is the 
eternal kernel of truth enclosed in this Jewish shell ? 
The kernel the author referred to finds in the mystic 
doctrine of the more advanced portion of Romans. "In 
chap. iv. he (Paul) develops the formal principle of 
salvation, which is justification by faith, treated in a 
forensic manner, in accord with prevailing Jewish con- 
ceptions; in chaps, v., vi., and viii. he unfolds the real 
principle of salvation, which is moral renewal through 
union with Christ. The first argument is designed to 
parry a false theory, and meets that theory on its own 
juristic plane of thought; the second exposition is 
adapted to the edification and instruction of believers, 
and, mounting up into the spiritual realm, deals with 
the moral and religious truths, processes, and forces 
which are involved in justification." 1 The writer of 
these sentences, it seems to me, makes the mistake of 
imputing to St. Paul a distinction which exists only for 
the modern consciousness. It is one thing to insist on 
the need, and claim the right, to interpret Pauline forms 
of thought into eternally valid truth; quite another to 
ascribe to St. Paul our view of what is form and what 
1 The Pauline Theology, p. 275. 



WITHOUT AND WITHIN 213 

essence. For the apostle, objective righteousness was 
more than a form, it was a great essential reality, pardon 
of sin for Christ's sake; not a mere symbol of a higher 
truth, but an important member of the organism of 
Christian truth; not a mere controversial weapon, but a 
doctrine in which his own heart found satisfaction. 

None of the foregoing hypotheses can be accepted as 
a satisfactory account of the way in which the two 
aspects of salvation were connected in the apostle's mind. 
How, then, are we to conceive the matter ? Perhaps we 
shall best get at the truth by trying to imagine the 
psychological history of the apostle's thought on these 
themes. The first great stage in the process would be 
connected with his never-to-be-forgotten escape from 
legalism to a religion of faith in God's grace. What 
would be the attitude of his mind at that crisis ? One 
of blissful rest in the ideal of righteousness as realised 
in Christ : "I have failed, but He has succeeded, and I 
am righteous in Him." That thought would undoubt- 
edly give his eager spirit rest for a season. But only 
for a season. For the imperious hunger of the soul 
for righteousness is still there, and no mere pardon, or 
acceptance as righteous through faith, can satisfy per- 
manently its longings. And as soon as the convert 
discovers that he has not yet attained, the cry will 
awake in his conscience, How shall I become all I ought 
and desire to be? It is not, like the old cry, "O 
wretched man that I am ! " a despairing exclamation. It 
is the voice of Christian aspiration uttered in good hope, 
grounded on the consciousness of spiritual forces actually 
at work within the soul. What are these ? There is 



214 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

faith incessantly active about Christ, constantly thinking 
of Him as crucified and risen, winding itself about Him, 
and extracting nourishment from every known fact in 
His earthly history. And there is the Holy Ghost, 
about whose mighty working in believers one living in 
those days could not fail to hear. How He revealed 
Himself in St. Paul's consciousness as a factor making 
for Christian holiness, distinct from faith, is a question 
that need not here be considered. Suffice it to say that, 
judging from his writings, the Spirit of Jesus did not 
leave Himself without a witness in his religious experi- 
ence. These were two potent forces at work within 
him, filling him with high hope. But, alas, not they 
alone; along with them worked a sinister influence, 
seeming to have its seat in the flesh, possessing potency 
sufficient to disturb spiritual serenity, cloud hope, and 
introduce a tragic element of sadness into the new life. 
Here were conflicting powers supplying food for reflec- 
tion: faith, the spirit, the flesh. How were those facts 
of the Christian consciousness to be formulated and 
correlated ? The apostle's mind would not be at rest 
till it had got a way of thinking on these matters, and 
the results of his meditations, more or less protracted, 
lie before us in Romans vi.-viii., and in some other places 
in his Epistles. They consist of his doctrine of faith as 
a spiritual force, his doctrine of the Holy Spirit as the 
immanent source of Christian holiness, and his doctrine 
of the flesh as the great obstructive to holiness. 

From the foregoing ideal history, it follows that St. 
Paul's doctrine of subjective righteousness, its causes and 
hindrances, was of later growth than his doctrine of 



WITHOUT AND WITHIN 215 

objective righteousness. This was only what was to be 
expected. God does not reveal all things at once to 
truth-seeking spirits. He sends forth light to them just 
as they need it. Inspirations come piecemeal, in many 
parts and in many modes, to apostles as to prophets. 
System-builders may throw off a whole body of 
8 8 divinity "at a sitting, but in a scheme of thought so 
originating there is little of the divine. The true divine 
light steals upon the soul like the dawn of day, the 
reward of patient waiting. So St. Paul got his doctrine 
of righteousness, not complete at a stroke, but in suc- 
cessive vistas answering to pressing exigencies. The 
doctrine of objective righteousness met the spiritual need 
of the conversion crisis; the doctrine of subjective right- 
eousness came in due season to solve problems arising 
out of Christian experience. 

The two doctrines, when they had both been revealed, 
lived together peaceably in St. Paul's mind. The latter 
did not come to cancel the earlier, or to put the Christian 
disciple out of conceit with his primitive intuitions. He 
conserved old views while gratefully welcoming the new. 
Why should he do otherwise ? The two revelations 
served different purposes. They were not two incom- 
patible answers to the same question, but compatible 
answers to two distinct questions. At his conversion, 
Saul, a despairing man, threw himself on the grace of 
God, crying, "God be merciful to me, the sinner, for 
Jesus Christ's sake," and in so doing found rest. On 
reflection this experience shaped itself intellectually into 
the doctrine of justification by faith: God regards as 
righteous any man, be he the greatest sinner, who trusts 



216 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

in His grace through Jesus Christ. At a later period, 
Paul, the believing man, on examining himself, discovered 
that what he had utterly failed to accomplish on the 
method of legalism, he was now able approximately to 
achieve, the realisation of the moral ideal even as inter- 
preted by the Christian conscience, an ideal infinitely 
higher than the Pharisaic. The righteousness of the 
law, spiritualised and summed up in love, was actually 
being fulfilled in him. A marvellous contrast; whence 
came the striking moral change in the same man ? The 
earlier question had been, How can I get peace of con- 
science in spite of failure ? The question now is, Why 
is it that I no longer fail ? how comes it that, notwith- 
standing my greatly increased insight into the exacting 
character of the Divine law, I have a buoyant sense of 
moral ability and victory ? St. Paul sought and found 
the answer through observation of the forces which he 
perceived to be actually at work within him. 

In making this statement I have answered by antici- 
pation the question, Whence did St. Paul get the mystic 
element which formed the later phase in his composite 
conception of salvation as unfolded with exceptional 
fulness in the Epistle to the Romans ? According to 
some he was indebted for this, directly or indirectly, to 
the Alexandrian Jewish philosophy. Certain modern 
theologians, while ascribing to the apostle a preponderant 
influence in determining the character of Christianity, 
seem disposed to reduce his originality to a minimum. 
They will have it that in no part of his system was he 
much more than a borrower. He got his forensic 
doctrine of imputed righteousness from the Pharisaic 



WITHOUT AND WITHIN 217 

schools and his mystic doctrine of imparted righteous- 
ness from Philo possibly, or more probably from the 
Hellenistic Book of Wisdom. So Pfleiderer, for example, 
in his Urchristenthum, and in the new edition of his 
Paulinismus. Men of sober judgment will be very slow 
to take up with such plausible generalisations. They 
rest upon an extremely slender basis of fact, and they 
are a priori improbable. That St. Paul, after he became 
a Christian, wholly escaped from Rabbinical influence, I 
by no means assert; but I am very sceptical as to the 
wholesale importation into his system of Christian 
thought of the stock ideas of the theology of the 
Jewish synagogue. There is truth in the remark of 
Beyschlag, that it does too little honour to the creative 
power of the Christian spirit in St. Paul to lay so much 
stress on the points of resemblance between his views 
and the Pharisaic theology. 1 Still less justifiable is the 
hypothesis of dependence in reference to Hellenism. 
Even Pfleiderer admits that possibly St. Paul was not 
acquainted with Philo, and his contention is not that the 

1 Neutestamentliche Theologie, vol. ii. p. 23. Interesting in this 
connection are the remarks of C. J. Montefiore in a recent article in 
the Jewish Quarterly Beview (April 1894), on "First Impressions of 
Paul." "The Epistles of Paul," he says, "fill a newcomer with 
immense astonishment. They are so unique. They are so wholly 
unlike anything else he ever read. When I read the Synoptical 
Gospels I do not feel this utter unlikeness. . . . But Paul — even if, 
as Pfleiderer so ably argues, he is a mixture of Greek and Hebrew — 
still why should any such mixture produce Mm? His conception 
of the law, his theory of Christ, his view about Israel, his doctrine 
of justification, seem all not only original, but utterly strange and 
unexpected. His break with the past is violent. Jesus seems to 
expand and spiritualise Judaism. Paul in some senses turns it up- 
side down." 



218 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

apostle drew from the great Alexandrian philosopher, 
but that he derived some of his characteristic doctrines 
from the Book of Wisdom, which is a literary product of 
the same Greek spirit. It is in the power of anyone 
by perusal of the book to test the value of the assertion, 
and for myself I put it at a low figure. Speaking 
generally, I distrust this whole method of accounting for 
Paulinism by eclectic patchwork. It attaches far too 
much importance to contemporary intellectual environ- 
ment, and far too little to the creative personality of the 
man. The true key to the Pauline theology is that per- 
sonality as revealed in a remarkable religious experience. 
And if we are to go outside that experience in order to 
account for the system of thought, I should think it less 
likely to turn out a wild goose chase to have recourse to 
the Hebrew Scriptures, and especially to the Apostolic 
Church, than to the Jewish synagogue or the literature 
of Hellenism. 1 

For, while the originality of St. Paul in his doctrines 
of faith and of the Holy Spirit is by all means to be 
insisted on, it is at the same time to be remembered that 
he did not need to be original in order to recognise the 
existence of faith and the Holy Spirit as real and potent 
factors in the Christian life. One could not live within 
the Church of the first generation without hearing much 
of faith as a great spiritual force from the men who 
were acquainted with the tradition of Christ's teaching, 



1 On the dependence of St. Paul on the Hellenistic Book of Wisdom, 
vide Dr. Edmund Pfleiderer, Die Philosophie des Heraldit von Ephesus 
(1886), p. 296, where it is contended that 2 Corinthians v. 1-9 bears 
unmistakable traces of intimate acquaintance with that book. 



WITHOUT AND WITHIN 219 

and without witnessing remarkable phenomena which 
believers were in the habit of tracing to the mighty 
power of the Holy Ghost. Faith and the divine Spirit 
was universally regarded in the primitive Church as 
verce causce within the spiritual sphere. This common 
conviction was a part of the inheritance on which St. 
Paul entered on becoming a Christian. His originality 
came into play in the development which the common 
conviction underwent in his mind. In his conception of 
the subtle, penetrating nature of faith and its irresistible 
vital power he distanced all his contemporaries. The 
faith-mysticism is all his own; there is nothing like it 
elsewhere in the New Testament. The apostle Peter 
comes nearest to it when he exhorts Christians to arm 
themselves with the mind exemplified by Christ in 
suffering for men in the flesh. 1 But St. Peter's point of 
view is comparatively external. The suffering Christ is 
for him simply exemplary: " Christ also suffered for us, 
leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps. ' ' 2 
There is no co-dying and co-rising here, as in the Pauline 
Epistles. So peculiar is this to the Gentile apostle that 
it might be made the test of genuineness in reputedly 
Pauline literature. On this ground alone there is a 
strong presumption in favour of the Pauline authorship 
of the Epistle to the Colossians, wherein we find an 
exhortation to Christians who have risen with Christ to 
complete the process of mystic identification by ascend- 
ing with Him to heaven. 3 If some unknown disciple of 
the Pauline school wrote the letter, he had caught the 
master's style very well, and had noted the faith- 
1 1 Peter iv. 1. 2 Ibid. ii. 21. 3 Col iii. 1. 



220 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

mysticism as specially characteristic. It is indeed very 
doubtful if any imitation, conscious or unconscious, 
would have reproduced that trait. It was too peculiar, 
too poetic, too much the creation of individual idiosyn- 
crasy. The ordinary man would be afraid to meddle with 
it, and inclined to leave it alone, or to translate it into 
more prosaic and generally intelligible phraseology, 
like that in which St. Peter held up Jesus for imitation 
as the great exemplar. 

For a similar reason it may be regarded as certain 
that St. Paul did not borrow the faith-mysticism from 
any foreign source. The mind which could not produce 
it would not borrow it. The presence of that element in 
St. Paul's letters is due to his religious genius. No 
other psychological explanation need be sought of his 
great superiority to his fellow-writers of the New Testa- 
ment as an assertor of faith's powers. He was a far 
greater man, incomparably richer in natural endowment, 
than St. Peter or St. James, or even than the author of the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, though in some respects the 
latter excelled him. He was gifted at once with an 
original intellect, an extraordinary moral intensity, and 
a profoundly mystical religious temperament. To the 
united action of these characteristics we owe his doctrine 
of the believer's fellowship with Christ. As he states 
the doctrine, that fellowship was a source of ethical in- 
spiration, and so doubtless it was ; but it is equally true 
that it was an effect, not less than a cause, of exceptional 
moral vitality. St. Paul's whole Avay of thinking on the 
subject took its colour from his spiritual individuality. 
This statement does not mean that his views are purely 



WITHOUT AND WITHIN 221 

subjective and personal, and of no permanent objective 
value to Christians generally. But it does imply that 
the Pauline mysticism demands moral affinity with its 
author for due appreciation, and that there must always 
be many Christians to whom it does not powerfully 
appeal. 

One point more remains to be considered, viz., the 
mode in which the two aspects of the apostle's double 
doctrine of righteousness are presented in his Epistles in 
relation to each other. There is no trace of the gradual 
development implied in the psychological history pre- 
viously sketched beyond the fact that the subjective 
aspect, the later, according to that history, in the order 
of development, comes second in the order of treatment, 
both in Romans, where it is handled at length, and in 
Gralatians, where it is but slightly touched on. In both 
Epistles the doctrine of subjective righteousness is intro- 
duced with a polemical reference. In Romans it is set 
in opposition to the notion that reception of "the 
righteousness of God ' ' by faith is compatible with 
indifference to personal holiness; in Cralatians it is 
exhibited as the true method of attaining personal 
holiness as against a false method which is declared to 
be futile. " Shall we continue in sin that grace may 
abound ? " x is the question to which the doctrine is an 
answer in the one case ; ' ; Shall we supplement faith in 
Christ by circumcision and kindred legal works ? " is the 
question to which it is an answer in the other. 2 Over 
against the patchwork programme of Judaistic Chris- 
tianity the apostle sets the thoroughgoing self-consistent 
1 Bom. vi. 1. 2 Gal. v. 2-6. 



222 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

programme of a Christianity worthy of the name : ' ' We 
in the Spirit from faith wait for the hope of righteous- 
ness," where, as we shall see more fully hereafter, 
righteousness is to be taken subjectively, and the two 
great guarantees for the ultimate attainment of personal 
righteousness, faith and the Spirit, are carefully specified. 
His whole doctrine of sanctification, as fully unfolded in 
the Epistle to the Romans, is contained in germ in this 
brief text in his earlier Epistle to the Galatians. As 
here stated, the Pauline programme is sanctification by 
faith not less than justification — faith good for all 
purposes, able to meet all needs of the soul. 

In some respects the earlier formulation is to be pre- 
ferred to the later. If briefer, it is also simpler, gives 
less the impression of abstruseness and elaboration, wears 
more the aspect of a really practicable programme. It 
makes Paulinism appear one uniform self-consistent 
doctrine of righteousness by faith, not as in Romans, 
on a superficial view at least, a doctrine of objective 
righteousness imputed to faith, supplemented by a 
doctrine of subjective righteousness wrought out in us 
by the joint operation of faith and the Holy Spirit. It 
addresses itself to a nobler state of mind, and moves on 
a loftier plane of religious feeling. St. Paul's ideal 
opponent in G-alatians is a man who earnestly desires to 
be righteous in heart and life, and fails to see how he can 
reach that goal along the line of faith. In Romans, on 
the other hand, he is a man who conceives it possible to 
combine reception of God's grace with continuance in sin, 
and even to magnify grace by multiplying sin. Against 
the latter, the apostle has to plead that his gospel is a 



WITHOUT AND WITHIN 223 

way to holiness; against the former, that it is the only 
way to holiness. That it tends that way the legalist 
does not dispute; he only doubts its ability by itself to 
bring men to the desired end. Such an one an apostle 
may, without loss of dignity, seek to instruct. But 
how humiliating to argue with one who cares nothing 
for holiness, but only for pardon; and how vain! What 
chance of such an one understanding, or sympathising 
with, the mystic fellowship of faith with Christ? Is 
it not casting pearls before swine to expound the doc- 
trine to so incapable a scholar ? Perhaps, but St. Paul's 
excuse must be that he cannot bring himself to despair 
of any who bear the Christian name. He wishes to 
lead into the school of Jesus all who have believed in 
Him, whether they be honest but ill-instructed legalists, 
or low-minded sensualists. Therefore, to the one class, 
he says : 4 ' If ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you 
nothing " ; 1 and to the other : 4 ; Let not sin reign in 
your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts 
thereof." 2 

1 Gal. v. 2. 2 Bom. vi. 12. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE MORAL ENERGY OF FAITH 

Earnestly bent on reconciling his gospel with all the 
three interests covered by his apologetic, the apostle was 
specially anxious to show that his doctrine was not open 
to objection on the score of moral tendency. It was 
quite natural that he should be exceptionally sensitive 
on this subject, not only because he was himself a mor- 
ally earnest man, keenly alive to the supreme importance 
of right conduct as the ultimate test of the truth of all 
theories, and of the worth of all religions, but more 
especially because it was at this point that his system 
might plausibly be represented as weakest. How easy 
to caricature his antinomianism as a licentious thing 
which cancelled all moral demands, and set the believer in 
Jesus free to do as he liked, to sin if he pleased, without 
fear, because grace abounded ! It is not improbable that 
such misconstruction was actually put by disaffected per- 
sons on the Pauline gospel ; it is only too likely that some 
members of the various churches founded by the apos- 
tle's preaching, by the unholiness of their lives, supplied 
a plausible excuse for misrepresentation. In any case 
both these phenomena were a priori to be expected. On all 
grounds, therefore, it was most needful that the doctrine 

224 



THE MORAL ENERGY OF FAITH 225 

of justification by faith in God's free grace should be 
cleared of all suspicion in reference to its practical ten- 
dency. 

As already pointed out, the Pauline apologetic offers 
two lines of defence for this purpose — the one based on 
the moral energy of faith, the other on the sanctifying 
influence of the indwelling Holy Spirit. The first line 
of defence falls now to be considered. 

Faith, as St. Paul conceives it, is a mighty principle, 
possessing a plurality of virtues, and capable of doing 
more things than one. For him, as for the author of the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, it is the mother of heroic achieve- 
ments, and can not only please God, but enable men to 
make their lives morally sublime. It is, in his view, as 
good for sanctification as for justification. Therefore, his 
programme, as formulated in Gal. v. 5, is: faith alone 
for all purposes, for the obtainment of righteousness 
in every sense; not merely righteousness objective, or 
God's pardoning grace, but righteousness subjective, or 
personal holiness. In this notable text hacaioo-vvrjs is an 
objective genitive — " the hope whose object is righteous- 
ness " — and the righteousness hoped for is subjective, an 
inward personal righteousness realising the moral ideal. 
That the apostle does sometimes use the term Si/ccuocrvvr) 
in a subjective sense is unquestionable. We have clear 
instances of such use in Rom. viii. 10: " If Christ be in 
you, the body is indeed dead on account of sin, but the 
spirit is life on account of righteousness ' ' ; and Rom. 
vi. 16-20, especially ver. 18: " Being freed from sin, 
ye became the servants of righteousness." On inquiry 
it will be found that the subjective sense prevails chiefly. 



226 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

as we might expect, in apologetic passages, where the 
apostle is concerned to vindicate for his doctrine a whole- 
some ethical tendency. On this principle Gal. v. 5 
must be regarded as one of the texts in which Si/caioavvr] 
bears a subjective meaning. For in the context the writer 
is engaged in combating a religious theory of life on 
which the Galatian churches seem to have been, perhaps 
half unconsciously, acting, viz., that while faith might be 
good for the initial stage of the Christian life, it was of 
little or no avail for the more advanced stages, the needs 
of which must be met by a methodised system of legal 
observances. Against this patchwork theory what should 
we expect the champion of anti-legalist Christianity to 
say ? This : Faith is good for all stages, beginning, 
middle, and end; for all purposes, to make us holy, as 
well as to obtain pardon; it is the only thing that is 
good for holiness. Circumcision is good for nothing, 
and of equally little avail is the whole elaborate system 
of ritual, which legal doctors inculcate upon you. This 
accordingly is just what the apostle does say in the text 
G-al. v. 5, 6, if we take righteousness in a subjective 
sense as equivalent to holiness : We, right-minded, right- 
thinking Christians, in the spirit, from faith, expect the 
hope of holiness; for in Christ neither circumcision 
availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith Avorking 
by love. It tends to confirm this interpretation that 
righteousness is here represented as an object of hope. 
Righteousness is set forth as the goal of Christian hope, 
which the apostle and all who agree with him expect to 
reach from faith, that is on the footing of faith, with 
faith as their guide all through. Obviously this goal of 



THE MORAL ENERGY OF FAITH 227 

righteousness is synonymous with Christian holiness, 
conformity to the moral ideal. One other fact support- 
ing the foregoing interpretation is the description of faith 
in the last clause of ver. 6, as energising through love 
(hi aydirr)*; evepyovfievw) . How far the description is true 
is a question to be considered; the point now insisted on 
is that such an account of faith is relevant only if faith 
be viewed as a sanctifying influence, as conducive to 
subjective righteousness. 1 

This, then, is the Pauline programme; from faith jus- 
tification, i.e., righteousness in the objective sense; from 
faith also the hope of holiness, i.e., righteousness in the 
subjective sense. But by what right does the apostle 
repose such unbounded confidence in faith as the prin- 
ciple of a new life of Christian sanctity ? He gives two 
answers to this question at least formally distinct; one 
in the text just quoted, wherein faith is described as 
energetic through love; the other in that earlier text in 
Gralatians, wherein faith is also described as making the 
believer one with Christ, 2 a line of thought which is 
resumed and expanded in Rom. vi. 

The former of these two views of faith exhibits it as a 
powerful, practical force, which works mightily, and in 
the best way, from the highest motive, love. The attri- 
bute denoted by ivepyovfjuevn, guarantees the requisite life 
force, the motive denoted by the expression ht ayairns 
insures the pure quality of the action produced thereby. 

1 Holsten {Das Evangelium des Paulus) endorses this view. He 
says "that here dtKaLoavvrj refers not to objective righteousness but to 
subjective righteousness of life is shown by the connection, and the 
grounding of diKcuoavvr) on the spirit," p. 173, 

2 Gal. ii. 20. 



228 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

The allegations are obviously most relevant to the argu- 
ment. For if faith be really an energetic principle, and 
if it do indeed work from love as its motive, then we may 
expect from its presence in the soul right conduct of the 
highest order. Out of the energy of faith will spring all 
sorts of right works, and those works will not be vitiated 
by base motives, as in religions of fear, in connection 
with which superstitious dread of God proves itself not 
less mighty than faith, but mighty to malign effects, 
making men even give of the very fruit of their body for 
the sin of their soul. The only question therefore 
remaining is: Are the apostle's statements concerning 
faith true ? is faith an energetic force ? does it work 
from love as its motive ? 

There should be no hesitation in admitting the truth 
of both statements. That faith is an energetic principle 
all human experience attests. Faith, no matter what its 
object, ever shows itself mighty as a propeller to action. 
If a man believes a certain enterprise to be possible and 
worthy, his faith will stir him up to persistent effort for 
its achievement. The eleventh chapter of the Epistle to 
the Hebrews settles the question as to the might inherent 
in faith. In this might all faith shares, therefore the 
faith of Christians in God. But why should the faith 
of Christians work by love ? Why not by some other 
motive, say fear, which has been such a potent factor in 
the religious history of mankind ? Is there any intrinsic 
necessary connection between Christian faith and love ? 
There is, and it is due to the Christian idea of God. All 
turns on that. The God of our faith is a God of grace. 
He is our Father in heaven, and we, however unworthy, 



THE MORAL ENERGY OF FAITH 229 

are His children. Therefore our faith inevitably works 
by love. First and obviously by the love of gratitude 
for mercy received. For, whereas the question of a re- 
ligion of fear is : 4 ' Wherewithal shall I come before the 
Lord that I may appease His wrath," faith speaketh in 
this wise : c 4 What shall I render unto the Lord for all 
His benefits ? ' ' But not through the love of gratitude 
alone ; also through the love of adoration for the highest 
conceivable ethical ideal realised in the divine nature. 
God is love, benignant, self-communicating, self-sacri- 
ficing. To believe in such a God is to make love, similar 
in spirit, if limited in capacity, the law of life. Hence 
the necessity for taking care that our developed theolo- 
gies and our theories of atonement do not make whole- 
hearted faith in such a God difficult or impossible. All 
theologies which have this result are suicidal, and 
secure a barren orthodoxy at the expense of Christlike 
heroic character and noble conduct. 

The apostle's conception of the Christian faith, as ener- 
getic through love, is thus in harmony at once with the 
general nature of faith as a principle in the human mind, 
and with the specific nature of the Christian religion. 
But the boldness with which he gave utterance to this 
conception really sprang out of his own experience. His 
own faith was of this description; hence his unbounded 
confidence in the power of faith to work out the problem 
of salvation from sin. And his life as a Christian is the 
justification of his confidence; for if we may judge of 
faith's sufficiency for the task assigned to it in the 
Pauline system by the character and career of the apostle 
to the Gentiles, then we may, without hesitation, give in 



230 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

our adherence to the watchword, Faith alone. Testing 
the formula by the common phenomena of religious life, 
we might very excusably pause before adopting it. Two 
classes of phenomena are of frequent occurrence. One 
is the combination of the standing-ground of faith with 
various forms of legalism. The other is the more in- 
congruous combination of evangelic faith with vulgar 
morality or, worse still, with immorality. The former 
combination, exhibited in one form or another in every 
generation, and in every branch of the Church, may 
seem to prove that the programme, Faith alone for all 
purposes, is generally found by devout souls unworka- 
ble. From the latter combination it may plausibly be 
inferred that the proclamation from the housetop of the 
Pauline programme is dangerous to morals. 

Now, as to the combination of faith and legalism, it 
must be sorrowfully admitted that it always has been, 
and still is, very prevalent. History attests that it has 
ever been found a hard thing to remain standing on the 
platform of free grace. Downcome from that high level 
to a lower, from grace to law, from faith to technical 
44 good works," from liberty to bondage, seems to be a 
matter of course in religious experience, individual and 
collective. What happened in Galatia repeats itself from 
age to age, and in all churches. Legalism in some form 
recurs with the regularity of a law of nature. The fact 
raises a preliminary presumption against the Pauline 
programme which must be faced. How, then, are we to 
reconcile the fact with the all-sufficiency of faith ? We 
shall best do this by taking into account the law of 
growth in the kingdom of God, enunciated by our Lord 



THE MORAL ENERGY OF FAITH 231 

in the parable of the blade, the ear, and the ripe corn. 
Legalism is a characteristic of the stage of the green ear, 
in the spiritual life of the individual and of the com- 
munity. The blossom and the ripe fruit, the beginning 
and the end of a normal Christian experience, exhibit 
the beauty of pure evangelic faith. The green fruit is a 
lapse from the simplicity of the beginning, a lapse which 
is at the same time a step in advance, as it prepares the 
way for a higher stage, in which evangelic faith shall re- 
appear victorious over the legal spirit of fear, distrust, 
and self-reliance. If this be true, and it is verified at 
once by Church history and by religious biography, then 
the apostle's programme is vindicated; for we must test 
his principle by the end of Christian growth, and by the 
beginning, which is a foreshadowing of the end, not by 
the intermediate stage, in which morbid elements appear, 
the only value of which is that they supply a discipline 
which makes the heart glad to return again to the sim- 
plicity of trust. Judge Paulinism by its author, not by 
his degenerate successors; by the Reformers, not by the 
scholastic theologians of the seventeenth century; by the 
men in whom the spirit of the Reformation reappeared 
at the close of the dreary period of Protestant scholasti- 
cism, terminating in universal doubt; by men like Bengel 
in Germany, and Chalmers in Scotland, whose faith was 
not a mere tradition from the fathers, and, as such, a 
feeble degenerate thing, but a fresh revelation from 
heaven to their own souls. True evangelic faith can- 
not be a tradition; in the very act of becoming such, 
what passes for evangelic faith degenerates into a legal- 
ism which brings the way of faith into discredit. 



232 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

Passing now to the other phenomenon, the combination 
of evangelic faith, so-called, with a low moral tone, what 
shall we say of it ? Does it not prove that there is a 
real risk of the Pauline doctrine not only failing to 
promote sanctification, but even becoming perverted into 
a corrupting, demoralising influence ? It certainly does 
show that there is serious risk of abuse, through the 
unworthiness of men who turn the grace of God into 
licentiousness. But divine grace is not the only good 
thing that is liable to be abused. And in other matters 
men guard against abuse as best they can, still holding 
on to the legitimate use. Even so must we act in ref- 
erence to the matter of salvation by faith in divine 
grace. We must refuse to be put out of conceit with 
that way to spiritual life and health by a counterfeit, 
hypocritical, immoral evangelicism. We must reckon 
the principle of the Pauline gospel a thing so good as to 
be worth running risks for, and continue to adhere to it 
in spite of all drawbacks. We must not be ashamed of 
the motto on our banner because a rascally mob follows 
in the rear repeating our watchword, and shouting, ' 4 We 
will rejoice in Thy salvation." Think of the men who 
constitute the real body of the army, the people who 
give themselves willingly to the noble fight against evil, 
clothed in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the 
morning; men of the stamp of Luther, Knox, Wishart, 
who were as the dew of Christ's youth in the morning 
of the Reformation. May we not bear with equanimity 
the presence in the Church of some worthless counter- 
feits, orthodox worldlings, selfish saints, hypocritical 
schemers, and the like, for the sake of such a noble race 



THE MORAL ENERGY OF FAITH 233 

of men ? May we not patiently see some using Christian 
liberty for an occasion to the flesh, when we recognise 
in such simply the abuse of a principle whose native 
tendency is to produce men like-minded with St. Paul: 
men taking their stand resolutely on grace, not because 
they desire to evade moral responsibilities, but because 
they hope to get the hunger of their spirit for righteous- 
ness tilled, and to be enabled to rise to heights of moral 
attainment otherwise inaccessible; men passionately bent 
on being freed from every species of degrading, hamper- 
ing bondage, specially jealous of all religious fetters, yet 
desiring freedom only for holy ends ; ridding themselves 
of ' 4 dead works ' ' that they may serve God in a new 
living, devoted way ? Such, beyond doubt, is the kind 
of men thoroughgoing faith in divine grace tends to pro- 
duce; and if there are fewer such men in the Church 
than one could wish, it is because the faith professed is 
not earnestly held, or held in its purity, but is mingled 
with some subtle element of legalism which prevents it 
from having its full effect. 

After what has been said in a former chapter, 1 it will 
not be necessary to expatiate on the other source of 
faith's sanctifying power, the fellowship which it estab- 
lishes between the believer and Christ. However mystic 
and transcendental this fellowship may appear to some 
minds, it will not be denied that in proportion as it is 
realised in any Christian experience it must prove a 
powerful stimulus to Christlike living. No man can, 
like the apostle, think of himself as dying, rising, and 
ascending with Christ without being stirred up to 
1 Vide chap. ix. 



234 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

strenuous effort after moral heroism. The "faith- 
mysticism " is the stuff out of which saints, confessors, 
and martyrs are made. The only point on which there 
is room for doubt is whether, under this form of its 
activity, faith be a sanctifying power to any considerable 
extent for all, or only for persons of a particular religious 
temperament. Under the aspect already considered, faith 
is a universal moral force. No man, be his temperament 
what it may, can understand and believe in the loving- 
kindness of God, as proclaimed in the gospel, without 
being put under constraint of conscience by his faith. 
The man who earnestly believes himself to be a son of 
God must needs try to be Godlike. Even if in spiritual 
character he be of the unimaginative, unpoetic, matter- 
of-fact type, he will feel his obligation none the less; it 
will appear to him a plain question of sincerity, common 
honesty, and practical consistency. In comparison with 
the mystic, he may have to plod on his way without 
aid of the eagle wings of a fervid religious imagination ; 
nevertheless observe him, and you shall see him walk on 
persistently without fainting. He knows little of devotee 
raptures; St. Paul's way of thinking concerning co-dying 
and co-rising is too high for him. He does not presume 
to criticise it, or depreciate its characteristic utterances 
as the extravagant language of an inflated enthusiasm; 
he simply leaves it on one side, and, renouncing all 
thought of flying, is content with the pedestrian rate of 
movement. But the steadiness of his advance approves 
him also to be a true son of faith. 

The Avings of the mystic are essentially one with the 
feet of the plain Christian man. Fellowship Avith Christ 



THE MORAL ENERGY OF FAITH 235 

is only a form which the moral energy of faith takes in 
certain types of spiritual experience. In a low degree 
it is known to all, but in signal measure it is exhibited 
only in the lives of saints like St. Bernard and Samuel 
Rutherford. Translated into ethical precepts directed 
against fornication, uncleanness, and covetousness, to 
rise with Christ is a universal Christian duty; 1 but to 
clothe duty in that imaginative garb, and to realise it 
emotionally under that aspect, is, at the best, a counsel 
of perfection. 

From all that precedes, it will be apparent that I 
regard St. Paul as teaching that sanctifying power is 
inherent in faith. It is not an accident that it works 
that way, it cannot but so work. Given faith, Christian 
sanctity is insured as its fruit or natural evolution. This 
view, if well founded, supplies a satisfactory connection 
between justification and sanctification, between religion 
and morality. Faith is the sure nexus between the two. 
But some writers on Paulinism demur to such promi- 
nence being given to the moral energy of faith. One 
can understand how Protestant orthodoxy, in its jealousy 
of Romish views, should be tempted to minimise faith's 
ethical virtue, with the result of failing to insure a close, 
genetic connection between justification and sanctifica- 
tion ; but modern commentators might have been expected 
to rise above such one-sidedness. Yet so weighty a 
writer as Weiss, under what influences one can only 
conjecture, completely disappoints us on this score. He 
maintains that such a view of faith's function as I have 
endeavoured to present is un-Pauline. The true account 
1 Col. iii. 1-5. 



236 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

of the apostle's doctrine, he thinks, is that justification 
and the communication of new life are two distinct 
divine acts, independent of each other, and connected 
together only in so far as faith is required in receiving 
both. Far from producing the new life by its moral 
energy, faith, according to this author's reading of Paul- 
inism, is hardly even the main condition of our receiv- 
ing that life from God. In this connection, baptism is 
supposed to come to the front as a second great principle 
of salvation, not less indispensable for regeneration, or 
the reception of the Holy Spirit, than faith is for 
justification. 

Is this really Paulinism ? I should be slow and sorry 
to believe it. This minimising of faith's function is 
hardly in the great apostle's line. He was more likely 
to exaggerate than to under-estimate the extent and 
intensity of its influence. We should not, indeed, expect 
from him any doctrine of faith which ascribed to it, 
conceived as a purely natural faculty of the human soul, 
power to renew character apart altogether from the 
grace of God. But he nowhere conceives of faith after 
this manner. He regards it as due to the action of the 
Divine Spirit in us that we know, have the power to 
appreciate, the things that are freely given to us of God. 1 
And no other view of the matter is reasonable. Faith, 
even in its justifying function, is a fruit of the Divine 
Spirit's influence. It is the act of a regenerate soul. 
How much is implied even in the faith that justifies! 
A sense of sin and of the need of salvation, self -distrust, 
trust in God, victory over the fear engendered by an 
1 1 Cor. ii. 12. 



THE MORAL ENERGY OF FAITH 237 

evil conscience, and courage to believe in God's goodwill 
even towards the guilty; instinctive insight into the 
magnanimity of God, in virtue of which He most readily 
gives His grace to the lowest, with resulting boldness to 
conceive and utter the prayer, " Pardon mine iniquity, for 
it is great. ' ' Surely the Divine Spirit is in this initial 
faith, if He be anywhere in our religious experience, and 
surely the faith which at its birth is capable of such 
achievements will, as it grows and gains strength, prove 
itself equal to all the demands of the spiritual life! 
And because both these things are true, the whole 
Christian life, from beginning to end, must be conceived 
of as an organic unity, with faith for its inspiring soul. 
The rupture of that unity, by the dissection of experi- 
ence into two independent experiences, justification and 
renewal, is a fatal mistake on the part of anyone who 
undertakes to expound the Pauline theology. The re- 
sulting presentation is not Paulinism as it lives and 
breathes in the glowing pages of the four great Epis- 
tles, but the dead carcase of Paulinism as anatomised 
by scholastic interpreters. 

And what is to be said of the theory which gives to 
baptism, in reference to the new life of the Christian 
man, a function parallel in importance to that of faith 
in reference to justification ? Many reasons can be 
given why it cannot be accepted as resting on the 
authority of St. Paul. It would require very clear and 
strong texts to overcome the antecedent unlikelihood of 
any such theory receiving countenance from him. Think 
of the man who so peremptorily said, " Circumcision is of 
no avail," assigning to baptism not merely symbolical, 



but essential significance in reference to regeneration. 
Then how weak his position controversially, if this was 
his view ! How easy for Judaistic opponents to retort, 
" What better are you than we ? You set aside circum- 
cision, and you put in its place baptism. We fail to see 
the great advantage of the change. You insist grandly 
on the antithesis between letter and spirit, or between 
flesh and spirit. But here is no antithesis. Baptism, 
not less than circumcision, is simply a rite affecting the 
body. You charge us with beginning in the spirit and 
with faith, and ending in the flesh. How do you defend 
yourself against the same charge ? " It is not likely that 
the apostle would teach a doctrine that made it possible 
for foes to put him in so narrow a corner. But consider 
further his position as an apologist for his gospel, as not 
unfavourable to ethical interests. It is in this apologetic 
connection that he refers to baptism in Romans vi., and, 
on the hypothesis as to the significance of that rite now 
under consideration, what we must hold him to say is in 
effect this : " No fear of my doctrine of justification by 
faith compromising ethical interests ; every believer is 
baptized, and baptism insures a new life of holiness." 
This defence is open to criticism in two directions. First 
on the score of logic. Opponents might bring against it 
the charge of ignoratio elenchi, saying : " We questioned 
the moral tendency of your doctrine of justification by 
faith, and we expected to hear from you something 
going to show that the faith that makes a man pass for 
righteous can, moreover, make him really righteous. 
But lo ! you bring in as deus ex machind this baptism 
which you never mentioned before. Is this not really 



THE MORAL ENERGY OF FAITH. 239 

an admission that your doctrine of justification is morally 

defective ? " On the other hand, the hostile critic might 

assail the supposed Pauline apologetic on the ground of 

fact, by inquiring, "Is, then, baptism an infallible specific 

for producing holiness? Do you find that all baptized 

persons live saintly lives ? It is incumbent on you, who 

have been so severe a critic of heathenism and Judaism, 

to be scrupulously candid and truthful in your answer." 

Who does not feel that the very conception of this ideal 

situation is a reductio ad absurdum of the sacrament- 

arian theory? After pronouncing heathenism and 

Judaism failures, as tested by morality, the apostle Paul 

in the face of the world, in a letter addressed to the 

metropolis of universal empire, declares his faith in 

Christianity as a religion that will stand the severest 

moral tests, and the ground of his confidence is — the 

rite of baptism ! 1 

1 The view has lately been propounded that the Lord's Supper 
owed its origin to St. Paul. It was revealed to him, such is the 
hypothesis, in one of those visions he was constitutionally liable to 
have, after he had seen or heard of the celebration of the Mysteries 
of Demeter at Eleusis near Corinth, during his stay at the latter 
city. The vision was the result of a desire to turn the Pagan 
ceremony to Christian use. The vision he turned into a history of 
something Jesus had actually done, and from him the story passed 
into the Gospels. The institution at least of the Lord's Supper as a 
sacrament, if not the whole transaction as recorded in the Gospels, 
originated in this way. Vide The Origin of the Lord's Supper, by 
Piercy Gardner, Litt. D. (Macmillan & Co. 1893). Apart from other 
considerations the theory appears to me improbable in view of St. 
Paul's whole religious attitude. A vision presupposes a mood to 
which it corresponds. The apostle's anti-Judaistic bias would dis- 
incline him from attaching importance to religious ritual. He 
was the last man to create sacraments, and he would accept either 
Baptism or the Lord's Supper only because he believed Christ had 
instituted it. 



240 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

The theory is without exegetical foundation. It is 
not necessary, in order to do full justice to the apostle's 
argument in Romans vi., to resign to baptism more than 
symbolical significance. We can, if we choose, ascribe 
to the rite essential significance, and bringing that view 
to the passage, ingeniously interpret it in harmony 
therewith. But it cannot be shown that baptism is for 
the apostle more than a familiar Christian institution, 
which he uses in transitu to state his view of the Chris- 
tian life in vivid, concrete terms, which appeal to the 
religious imagination. He employs it in his free, poetic 
way as an aid to thought, just as elsewhere he employs 
the veil of Moses, and the allegory of Sarah and Hagar. 
But alas, what with him was a spirited mystic concep- 
tion has become a very prosaic dogma. It is a fatality 
attending all religious symbolism. An apostle cannot 
say, " We were baptized into Christ's death," but he 
must be held to mean that the rite not only symbolises, 
but causes death to sin and resurrection to righteousness. 
Christ himself cannot say, 4 4 This is My body, ' ' but He 
must be held to mean: This bread is changed into My 
body. Yet, in the case of the apostle, the very manner 
in which he expresses himself as to the prevalence of 
the rite might put us on our guard against ascribing to 
him a theory of sacramental grace. " So many of us as 
were baptized " (oaot e^airTiaO^yuev). He leaves it 
doubtful whether all bearing the Christian name were 
baptized. Bengel appends to the word oaot the remark: 
4 ' Nemo Christianorum jam turn non baptizatus erat." 
It may have been so as a matter of fact, but it cannot 
be inferred from the apostle's language that every Chris- 



THE MORAL ENERGY OF FAITH 241 

tian, without exception, was baptized. There may have 
been some who remained unbaptized, for anything he 
says to the contrary; just as the statement of the 
evangelist, that, " as many as touched were made per- 
fectly whole," *■ leaves it doubtful whether all who desired 
to touch the hem of Christ's garment succeeded in 
gratifying their wish. If St. Paul had been a sacra- 
mentarian, he would have taken care to exclude the 
possibility of doubt. 2 

1 Matt. xiv. 36. 

2 A slight tinge of Bengel's dogmatism is discernible in the Revised 
Version, which substitutes at this point for the words of the A. V. 
quoted above, " All we who were baptized." 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE HOLY SPIRIT 

In no subject connected with Paulinism is it more neces- 
sary to be on our guard against a purely speculative or 
theoretic treatment than in that of the Holy Spirit. On 
this solemn theme, above all, the apostle's utterances are 
the echoes of a living experience, not the lucubrations of 
a scholastic theologian. The great question for him was 
not, what the Holy Spirit is, but what He does in the 
soul of a believing man; and, to be faithful interpreters 
of his mind, we must follow the guidance of the same 
religious interest. In the light of this consideration one 
can see the objection which lies against allowing the 
discussion of the present topic to be dominated, as it is in 
some recent monographs, by the antithesis between spirit 
and flesh. It is true that this is a very prominent Pauline 
antithesis, and it is also true that handling the locus of 
the Holy Spirit in connection therewith need not lead us 
away from the practical, inasmuch as the antithesis, as 
presented in the Pauline literature, signifies that the 
Holy Spirit is the antagonist and conqueror of the flesh 
as the seat of sin. But all antitheses tend to jDrovoke 
the intellectual impulse to abstract definition, and this 
one in particular readily raises questions as to what spirit 

242 



THE HOLY SPIRIT 243 

is and what flesh is, and draws us into abstruse discus- 
sions as to what ideas are represented by the terms, and 
what theory of the universe underlies their use. 

No such objection can be taken to the place here 
assigned to the doctrine of the Spirit as a topic coming 
under the general head of the Pauline apologetic, and 
more particularly under that part of it which has for its 
aim the reconciliation of the Pauline gospel with ethical 
interests. For this setting of the doctrine not only allows 
but compels us to give prominence to that which forms 
the distinctive contribution of St. Paul to the New 
Testament teaching on the subject, the great and fruitful 
thought that the Holy Spirit is the ground and source 
of Christian sanctity — a commonplace now, but by 
no means a commonplace when he wrote his Epistles. 
Only one drawback is to be dreaded. The position of 
the doctrine of the Spirit's work in the Pauline apolo- 
getic rather than in the heart of the Pauline gospel 
might create in ill-informed minds an erroneous im- 
pression as to its importance, as if it were an after- 
thought to meet a difficulty, instead of being, as it is, 
a central truth of the system. 

That the divine Spirit was present in the community of 
believers, revealing there His mighty power, was no dis- 
covery of the apostle Paul's. The fact was patent to all. 
By all accounts the primitive Church was the scene of 
remarkable phenomena which arrested general attention, 
and bore witness to the operation of a cause of a very 
unusual character to which beholders gave the name of 
the Holy Ghost. The Pauline Epistles, 1 the Epistle to the 
1 Vide especially 1 Cor. xii. and xiv. 



244 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

Hebrews, 1 and the Acts of the Apostles, all refer to these 
phenomena in terms which show what a large place they 
held in the consciousness of believers. Among the mani- 
festations of the Spirit's influence the most common and 
the most striking appears to have been speaking with 
tongues. The nature of this phenomenon has been a sub- 
ject of discussion, chiefly on account of the difficulty of 
reconciling the narrative in Acts ii. with the statements 
of St. Paul in his First Epistle to the Corinthians. But 
following him, our most reliable authority, we arrive at 
the conclusion that the gift consisted in ecstatic utter- 
ance, not necessarily in the words of any recognised 
language, and not usually intelligible to hearers. cc He 
that speaketh in a tongue speaketh not unto men but 
unto God." 2 The speaker was not master of himself; 
he was carried headlong, as if driven by a mighty wind; 
he was subject to strong emotion which must find vent 
somehow, but which could not be made to run in any 
accustomed channel. To the onlooker the state would 
present the aspect of a possession overmastering the 
reason and the will. 

It was in phenomena of this sort, preternatural effects 
of some great power, that the first Christians saw the 
hand of God. The miraculousness of the phenomena 
was what they laid stress on. The more unusual and 
out of the ordinary course, the more divine. In accord- 
ance with this view, the Spirit's work was conceived of 
as transcendent, miraculous, and charismatic. The power 
of the Holy Ghost was a power coming from without, 
producing extraordinary effects that could arrest the 
1 Vide Heb. vi. 4, 5. 2 1 Cor. xiv. 2. 






THE HOLY SPIRIT 245 

attention even of a profane eye — perceptible to a Simon 
Magus, e.g., 1 communicating charisms, technically called 
' i spiritual, ' ' but not ethical in nature ; rather consisting 
in the power to do things marvellous and create astonish- 
ment in vulgar minds. The fact that so crude an idea 
prevailed in the apostolic Church bears convincing 
testimony to the prominence of the preternatural element 
in the experience of that early time. And, of course, that 
prominence had for its natural consequence a very partial 
one-sided view of the office of the Holy Spirit. His 
renewing, sanctifying function seems to have been left 
very much in the background. He was thought of as 
the author not of grace (^a^t?) as we understand the 
term, but of charisms (^apiafjuara), and " spiritual " in 
the vocabulary of the period was an attribute ascribed to 
the effects of a Spirit of power, not to those of a Spirit of 
holiness. This statement is warranted by some narratives 
of apostolic Church history in the Book of Acts, in which 
the communication of the Holy Ghost is represented as 
following, not preceding, the believing reception of the 
gospel. So, e.g., in the account of the evangelistic move- 
ment in Samaria. 2 It was after the Samaritans had 
received the word of God that Peter and John, com- 
missioned by the apostles in Jerusalem, went down and 
prayed for them that they might receive the Holy 
Ghost. It is indeed expressly stated, as a reason for the 
prayer, that ' ' as yet He was fallen upon none of them ; 
only they had been baptized into the name of the Lord 
Jesus. ' ' And to what effect they received the Holy Ghost 
in answer to prayer may be inferred from the fact that 
1 Acts viii. 18. 2 Acts viii. 14-24. 



246 ST. PAUL'S CONCEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 

the result was immediately obvious to Simon the sorcerer. 
They must have begun to speak with tongues and to pro- 
phesy, as happened in the case of the disciples at Ephesus, 
who had lived in ignorance of the gift of the Spirit till 
St. Paul came and laid his hands on them. 1 In these 
naive records, which have every appearance of being a 
faithful reflection of the spirit of the early Jewish Church, 
faith, conversion, is not thought of as a work of the Spirit, 
but rather as the precursor to His peculiar operations, 
which in turn are regarded as a seal set by God upon 
faith. We are not to suppose that anyone meant 
deliberately to exclude the Holy Ghost from the properly 
spiritual sphere, and to confine His agency to the charis- 
matic region. That the author of Acts had no such 
thought may be gathered from the fact that he ascribed 
Lydia's openness of mind to the gospel to divine influence. 2 
Possibly, if the matter had been plainly put before them, 
all the members of the apostolic Church would have 
acknowledged that the Holy Spirit was the source of 
faith, hope, and love, as well as of tongues, and prophesy- 
ings, and miraculous healings. Only the latter phenomena 
appeared the more remarkable, and the former appeared 
a matter of course, whence it resulted that the gift of the 
Holy Spirit came in ordinary dialect to mean, not the 
power to believe, hope, and love, but the power to speak 
ecstatically, and to prophesy enthusiastically, and to heal 
the sick by a word of prayer. 

Very natural then and always ; for the same tendency 
exists now to prefer the charismatic to the spiritual, and 
to think more highly of the occasional stormy wind of 
1 Acts xix. 1-7. 2 Ibid. xvi. 14. 



THE HOLY SPIRIT 247 

preternatural might than of the still, constant air of divine 
influence. But the tendency has its dangers. What if 
these marvellous gifts become divorced from reason and 
conscience, and the inspired one degenerate into some- 
thing very like a madman; or, still worse, present the 
unseemly spectacle of high religious excitement combined 
with sensual impulses and low morality? Why, then, 
there will be urgent need for revision of the doctrine of 
the Holy Spirit, and for considering whether it be wise 
to lay so much stress on charisms, as distinct from graces, 
in our estimate of His influence. This was probably one 
of the causes which led St. Paul to study carefully the 
whole subject. For the possibilities above pointed out 
were not long of presenting themselves as sorrowful 
realities. Ananiases and Sapphiras and Simons, — the 
whole fraternity of people who can be religious and at 
the same time false, greedy, sensual, bending like reeds 
before the swollen stream in a time of enthusiasm without 
radical change of heart, — soon began to swarm. They 
appeared everywhere, tares among the wheat of the 
kingdom; they were unusually abundant in the Corinthian 
Church, where everybody could speak in one way or 
another, and virtue was at a discount — a Church mostly 
gone to tongue. Phenomena of this sort, familiar to him 
from the beginning of his Christian career, would set the 
apostle on musing, with the result of a deepened insight 
into the nature, scope, and great aim of the Spirit's func- 
tion among those who believed in Jesus. 

These phenomena Avould give a thoughtful man food for 
reflection in a direction not yet indicated. They showed 
very clearly that Christian sanctity was by no means so 



248 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

much a matter of course as antecedent to experience many 
might be inclined to suppose. At first it was thought 
that the great thing was to get the charisms, and that 
the graces might be left to look after themselves. But 
when men arose who could prophesy in Christ's name, 
and by His name cast out devils, and do many other 
wonderful works, and yet remain bad in heart and in life, 1 
then the wise would begin to see that Christian goodness 
was the important thing, and also the most difficult, 
and that the Holy Ghost's influence was more urgently 
needed as an aid against the baser nature of man than as 
a source of showy gifts of doubtful utility. 

In some such way we may conceive the apostle Paul to 
have arrived at his distinctive view of the Holy Spirit, 
according to which the Spirit's function is before all things 
to help the Christian to be holy. At all events, however 
he reached it, this undoubtedly is his view. By this 
statement it is not intended to suggest that the apostle 
broke entirely away from the earlier charismatic theory. 
He not only did not doubt or deny, he earnestly believed 
in the reality of the miraculous charisms. He even 
sympathised with the view that in their miraculousness 
lay the proof that the power of God was at work. He 
probably carried this supernaturalism into the ethical 
sphere, and saw in Christian holiness a work of the 
divine Spirit, because for him it was the greatest of all 
miracles that a poor sinful man was enabled to be holy. 
This may have been the link of connection between his 
theory of the Spirit's influence and that of the primitive 
Jewish Church; the common element in both theories 
1 Matt. vii. 22. 



THE HOLY SPIRIT 249 

being the axiom that the supernatural is divine, the 
element peculiar to his that the moral miracle of a 
renewed man is the greatest and most important of all. 
But while giving the moral miracle the lirst place he did 
not altogether despise the charismatic miracle. He 
criticised the relative phenomena, as one aware that they 
were in danger of running wild, and that they very much 
needed to be brought under the control of the great law 
of edification. 1 But he criticised in an ethical interest, 
not with any aversion to the supernatural. His criticism 
doubtless tended to throw the charisms into the shade, 
and even to bring about their ultimate disappearance. 
But there is nothing in his letters to justify the assertion 
that he desired their discontinuance, or deliberately 
worked for it. 2 Even his supreme concern for edification 
would not lead him to adopt such a policy. For the char- 
isms were not necessarily or invariably non-edifying. The 
power to heal 3 could not be exercised without contributing 
to the common benefit. Even speaking with tongues 
might occasionally be edifying, as when one here and 
there in an assembly cried out ecstatically, "Abba, 
Father," or uttered groans expressive of feelings that 
could not be embodied in articulate language. 4 The one 

1 1 Cor. xiv. 26 ; iravra irpos olKodo/xrjv. 

2 On the two conceptions of the Spirit's influence, as transcendent 
and immanent, vide Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, 3rd Aufl. vol. i. p. 
49, Note 1, where St. Paul is represented as vibrating between the 
two. Harnack refers to Gunkel and reflects his point of view. 

3 1 Cor. xii. 9 ; #\Ao> 5£ xaptV/xara, laixdriov. 

4 Gunkel {Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes, p. 67) suggests that 
both these phenomena belong to the category of " Glossolalie." It 
is one of many fruitful fresh suggestions to be found in this book, to 
which I gladly acknowledge my obligations. 



250 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

phenomenon, even if it stood alone without any added 
prayer, was a witness of the divine Spirit to the sonship of 
the believer. It was but a child's cry, uttered in helpless 
weakness, but the greater the helplessness the more con- 
clusive the witness; for who could teach the spiritual babe 
to utter such an exclamation but the Spirit of its heavenly 
Father ? The other phenomenon was but a speechless 
sound, a groan de profundis, but then it was a groan of 
the Holy Ghost, and as such revealed His unspeakably 
comforting sympathy with the sighing of the whole 
creation, and of the body of believers in Jesus for the 
advent of the new redeemed world. 

Yet, withal, the apostle believed that there were better 
things than charisms, and a better way than to covet 
them as the summum bonum. It was better, he held, 
to love than to prophesy or to speak with tongues ; 
and to help a man to love, a more worthy function of the 
Spirit than to bestow on him all the charisms. For in 
the charity extolled in 1 Corinthians xiii. he did recognise 
an effect of the divine activity, as we learn from the 
Epistle to the Galatians, where ayd7rrj heads the list in 
the catalogue of the fruit of the Spirit. 1 What an 
immense step onwards in the moral education of the 
world this doctrine, that love and kindred graces are the 
best evidence that a man is under the inspiration of the 
Holy Ghost, and that only they who love deserve to be 
called spiritual/ In the Epistle to the Galatians love, 
joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 
meekness, and self-control are set in antithesis to the 
works of the flesh, as the proper fruit of the Spirit. It 
i Gal. v. 22. 



THE HOLY SPIRIT 251 

is an instructive contrast; but even more significant, 
because more unexpected, is it to find the apostle in 
effect setting these virtues in contrast to the charisms, 
and saying to the Church of his time : 4 ' The true proper 
fruit of the Spirit is not the gift of healing, or of work- 
ing miracles, or of speaking with tongues, or of inter- 
preting tongues; it is love that suffereth long and is 
kind, that envieth not, and boasteth not; that beareth 
all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endur- 
eth all things." 1 No one possessing ordinary moral 
discernment can mistake the works of the flesh for the 
fruit of the Spirit, though here also mistakes are pos- 
sible, even in the case of religious men who confound 
their own private resentments with zeal for the glory of 
God. But how easy to imagine oneself a spiritual, 
Spirit-possessed man, because one has prophesied, and 
cast out devils in Christ's name; and how hard on such 
a self -deceived one the stern repudiation of the Lord, ' ' I 
know you not," and the withering contempt expressed 
in the words of his apostle, " If a man thinketh himself 
to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth 
himself. ' ' 2 

Divine action, when transcendent and miraculous, is 
intermittent. The speaker in a tongue does not always 
speak ecstatically, but only when the power from on 
high lays hold on him. In the case of the charisms it 
does not greatly matter. But in the case of the graces 
it matters much. Here intermittent action of the Spirit 
means failure, for a man cannot be said to be sanctified 
unless there be formed in him fixed habitudes of grace, 
1 1 Cor. xiii. 4-7. 2 Gal. vi. 3. 



252 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

manifesting themselves with something like the regu- 
larity of a law of nature. But where the action of the 
Spirit is intermittent there can be no habits or abiding 
states, but only occasional elevations into the third 
heaven of devout thought and holy emotion, followed by 
lapses to the lower levels in which unassisted human 
nature is at home. We can see what is involved by 
reference to the case of those who cried in ecstatic 
moods, Abba, 6 irarrjp. While they were in the mood 
they realised that God was their Father, that they were 
His sons. But the filial consciousness was not established 
in their hearts; when the transcendent influence out of 
which they spoke for the moment passed away, they 
sank down from the filial spirit to the legal, from trust 
to fear. To eliminate this ntfulness, and secure stable 
spiritual character, transcendency must give place to 
immanence, and preternatural action to action in accord- 
ance with spiritual law. The divine Spirit must cease 
to be above and outside, and take up His abode in our 
hearts, and His influence from being purely mysterious 
and magical must be exerted through the powers, and in 
accordance with the nature, of the human soul. With- 
out pretending that the apostle anticipated the modern 
doctrine of divine immanence it must be said that an 
indwelling of the Holy Spirit in man finds distinct 
recognition in his pages. He represents the Christian 
man as a temple in which the Spirit of God has His 
abode. 1 Even the body of a believer he conceives of 
under that august figure; as if the divine Spirit had 
entered into as intimate a connection with his material 
1 1 Cor. iii. 16. 



THE HOLY SPIRIT 253 

organism as that which the soul sustains to the body. 1 
And from that indwelling he expects not only the 
sanctification of the inner spiritual nature, but the 
endowment of the mortal body with unending life. 2 
The idea of the believing man as the temple of the 
Spirit is introduced by the apostle as a motive for self- 
sanctification, as if out of respect for our august tenant. 
But the same idea may be held to teach by implication 
the unintermitting, sanctifying influence of the imma- 
nent Spirit, whose constant concern it must be to keep 
His chosen abode worthy of Himself. His honour is no 
wise compromised by withholding for a season, or per- 
manently, from any believer charismatic power. The 
withdrawal may even be an index of spiritual advance 
from the crudity of an incipient religious enthusiasm to 
the calm of self-control. But the temple of God can- 
not be defiled by sin without injury to His good name, 
therefore for His own sake He is concerned to be con- 
stantly active in keeping the sanctuary holy. 

The immanency of the Holy Spirit carries further 
along with it, as has been stated, that His influence as 
a sanctifier is exerted in accordance with the laws of a 
rational nature. His instrument must be truth fitted, 
if believed, to tell upon the conscience and the heart. 
This fact also finds occasional, though not very elabo- 
rate recognition, in the Pauline Epistles. It is broadly 
indicated in the text in which the apostle tells the 
Thessalonians that God had chosen them unto salvation, 
in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. 3 
From this text the fair inference is that the Spirit 

1 1 Cor. vi. 15. 2 Bom. viii. 11. 3 2 Thess. ii. 13. 



254 ST. PAUL'S CONCEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 

sanctifies through Christian truth believed. We natu- 
rally expect to find useful hints on this topic in the 
Epistles written to the Church in which the charismatic 
action of the Spirit was specially conspicuous, and in 
which at the same time there was a great need for sanc- 
tification. And we are not disappointed. And it is 
noteworthy that the hints we do find connect sancti- 
fication closely with Christ. "Sanctified in Christ 
Jesus," 1 "Sanctified in the name of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, " 2 ' ' Christ made unto us sanctification. ' ' 3 The 
idea suggested in the second of these phrases may be 
that by the very name he bears the Christian is con- 
secrated to God. But this ideal sanctification is of 
value only on account of the real sanctification of which 
it is the earnest. And the other two phrases teach that 
the material conditions of such sanctification are pro- 
vided in Christ as an object of knowledge and faith. 
Christ fully taken advantage of in these ways will com- 
pletely insure our sanctification. The Spirit dwelling in 
the heart sanctifies through Christ dwelling in the heart 
by faith, and by thought in order to faith. Hence it 
comes that the Spirit and Christ are sometimes identi- 
fied, as in the sentence, "The Lord is the Spirit," 4 
and the expression "The Lord the Spirit." 5 As a 
matter of subjective experience the two indwellings 
cannot be distinguished; to consciousness they are 
one. The Spirit is the alter ego of the Lord. 

The truth as it is in Jesus, the idea of Christ, is the 
Spirit's instrument in sanctification. And whence do we 

1 1 Cor. i. 2. 2 Ibid. vi. 11. 3 Ibid. i. 30. 

4 2 Cor. iii. 17. 5 Ibid. iii. 18. 



THE HOLY SPIRIT 255 

get our idea of Christ ? Surely from the earthly history 
of our Lord ! It has been supposed that the apostle 
means to cast a slight on that history as of little value 
to faith when he says : " Even though we have known 
Christ after the flesh, yet now we know Him so no 
more. ' ' 1 But what he here says, like much else in his 
principal Epistles, must be looked at in the light of his 
controversy with the Judaists. His opponents attached 
great importance to mere external companionship with 
Jesus, and because he had not, like the Eleven, enjoyed 
the privilege of such companionship, they called in 
question his right to be an apostle. His reply to this 
in effect was that not outside acquaintance, but insight 
was what qualified for apostleship. The reply implies 
that the former may exist without the latter, which from 
familiar experience we know to be true. How ignorant 
oftentimes are a man's own relations of his inmost spirit! 
What is the value of any knowledge which is lacking 
in this respect ? Knowledge of a man does not mean 
knowing his clothes, his features, his social position. 
I do not know a man because I know him to be a man 
of wealth who resides in a spacious dwelling, and is 
surrounded with many comforts, and adorned with many 
honours. Some are very ambitious to know a person of 
whom these things are true, and they would cease to 
know him if he were deprived of these advantages. 
This is to know a man after the flesh, in Pauline phrase ; 
and if the man so known be a man of moral discern- 
ment, as well as of means and position, he will heartily 
despise such snobbish acquaintances who are friends of 
1 2 Cor. v. 16. 



256 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

his good fortune rather than of himself. Somewhat 
similar was the apostle's feelings in regard to the stress 
laid by the Judaists on acquaintance with Jesus after 
the manner of those who were with Him during the 
years of His public ministry. To cast a slight on the 
words and acts spoken and done in that ministry, and 
on the revelation of a character made thereby, was 
not, I imagine, in all his thoughts. 

Of systematic absolute neglect of the history of Jesus 
the apostle cannot be charged, in view of the importance 
he attaches to one event therein, the crucifixion, and 
that in connection with the work of the Holy Spirit. 
The Spirit he represents as shedding abroad in our hearts 
the love of God, as manifested in the death of Christ, 1 
overwhelming us, as it were, with a sense of its grandeur 
and graciousness, and so materially contributing to our 
sanctification through the strong hope it inspires and the 
consciousness of obligation it creates. One fails to see 
why every other event and aspect of Christ's earthly life 
should not be made to contribute its quota towards the 
same great end, and the whole evangelic story turned 
into motive power for sanctification. It is quite true 
that St. Paul has not done this, and that he has restricted 
his attention very much to the death and resurrection. 
But that is no reason why we should draw our idea of 
the Christ, by whose indwelling we are to be sanctified, 
exclusively from these two events. The fuller and more 
many-sided our idea the better, the more healthy the 
resulting type of Christian piety. The entire gospel 
story is needed and useful. To those who believe in an 
1 Bom. v. 5 ; cf. v. 8. 



THE HOLY SPIRIT 257 

inspired New Testament no further proof of this state- 
ment should be necessary than the simple fact that the 
Gospels are there. The Gospels say little about the 
Spirit, at least the Synoptical Gospels, but they supply 
the data with which the Spirit works. The Pauline 
Epistles say much about the Spirit and His work, but 
comparatively little about His tools. Gospels and 
Epistles must be taken together if we wish to construct 
a full wholesome doctrine of sanctification. No good 
can ultimately come to Christian piety from treating 
the evangelic history as a scaffolding which may be 
removed after the edifice of faith in a risen Lord has 
been completed. Antyeus-like faith retains its strength 
by keeping in touch with the ground of history. The 
mystic's reliance on immediate influence emanating from 
the ascended Christ, or from the Holy Spirit at His 
behest, without reference to the Jesus that lived in 
Palestine, exposes to all the dangers connected with 
vague raptures, lawless fancies, and spiritual pride. 
That the divine Logos, or the eternal Spirit of truth 
and goodness, can and does work on the human mind 
outside Christendom is most certainly to be believed. 
But that fact is no valid reason why endeavours should 
not be made to propagate Christianity among the heathen 
by missionary agencies, still less why there need have 
been no historical Christianity to propagate. In like 
manner it may be affirmed that, while it may be possible 
for the divine Spirit in a transcendental way to exert 
an influence on Christians without the aid of the 
4 c Word, ' ' the results of such action are not likely to be 
of a kind to compensate for the loss of knowledge of the 



258 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

historical Christ. It is true, indeed, that the historicity 
of the Gospels may be more or less open to question. 
In so far as that is the case, it is our loss. The cloud 
of uncertainty enveloping the life of Jesus is matter 
of regret, not a thing to be taken with philosophical 
indifference as if it were of no practical consequence. 

An apology is needed for making these observations, 
which to men of sober judgment will appear self- 
evident, but some present-day tendencies must be my 
excuse. And it is not irrelevant to offer such remarks 
in connection with the Pauline doctrine of the Spirit 
and the circumstances amidst which it was formulated. 
There can be little doubt that the religious enthusiasm 
of the apostolic age tended to breed indifference to the 
historical Christ. What need of history to men who 
were bearers of the Spirit, and were in daily receipt of 
revelations? I should be sorry to believe that the 
apostle sympathised with this tendency, though some 
have supposed that he did. 1 Be that as it may, what 
is certain is that the tendency was unwholesome. It 
was well that it had not the field altogether to itself, 
and that in spite of it the memory of Jesus was lovingly 
preserved. That memory saved Christianity. 2 

To rescue the name of St. Paul from being used as an 
authority for contempt of the historical, it may be well 
to cite another text, in which he connects the work of 

1 On this point Gloel (Der Heilige Geist, 173) remarks: " Paul is 
far removed from an enthusiastic subjectivism which consoles itself 
with personal experiences, but loses out of sight the historical 
foundations of the faith." 

2 Gunkel says: "Not a pneumatic speculation like that of St. 
Paul, which offered no security that Christianity should keep in the 



THE HOLY SPIRIT 259 

the Spirit with the example of Christ. In Qalatians 
vi. 1 he exhorts to considerate, gentle treatment of such 
as have been overtaken in a fault. The exhortation is 
addressed to the irvevfiariKol, i.e., those who are supposed 
to be specially filled with the Spirit, as if they were in 
danger of assuming a tone of severity, and so of reviving 
in the Church, under a new Christian guise, the Pharisaic 
type of character. Forbearing conduct towards offenders 
is then enforced by the consideration, that it is in 
accordance with "the law of Christ." No facts are 
specified to justify the title, but the reference is evidently 
to a manner of action on the part of Jesus with which 
it was possible for the Galatians to make themselves 
acquainted through available sources of information. 
Christ's endurance of death on the Cross was the most 
signal instance of His bearing the burdens of others; 
but there is no reason for limiting the reference to it. 
The apostle doubtless writes as one familiar with the 
fact that Jesus detested the inhumanity of the Pharisees, 
as represented in the behaviour of the elder brother of 
the parable, and in contrast to them pitied straying 
sheep and prodigal sons. In effect he sets before the 
Galatians as their model the Jesus of the Gospels, at 
once in His sympathies with the sinful, and in His an- 
tipathies towards the character of spurious saints, who, 
while boasting many virtues, lacked the cardinal grace of 

tracks of the historically given Gospel, but the infinitely imposing 
impression of the historical Christ has brought about that Christianity 
has not lost its historical character. The memory of Jesus has in 
this respect paralysed the pneumatic phenomena of the apostolic age, 
and survived them for more than a millennium," Die Wirkungen des 
heiligen Geistes, p. 61. 



260 st. Paul's conception of chkistianity 

charity. The true Trveviiaritcos, therefore, in his view, is 
the man before whose conscience the enlightening Spirit 
of truth keeps the Christlike ethical ideal as an object 
of ardent admiration and earnest pursuit. If this be 
indeed the way the Spirit takes to make the Christian 
holy, then it cannot be doubted that His influence makes 
for real sanctity. His power may seem small, its very 
existence as something distinct from our personal effort 
may appear questionable — all immanent divine action is 
liable to this doubt — but at all events it works in the 
right direction. In view of the extent to which the 
gracious spirit of Jesus has grown in the community, 
and of the deepened sense of responsibility for the 
welfare of others visible on all sides in our time, why 
should we have difficulty in believing that the power of 
the Holy Ghost is as mighty as it is beneficent ? At last 
the Spirit of truth has come to show us what Jesus was, 
and what true religion is: to teach us that orthodox 
faith by itself is nothing, and that Christlike love is 
all in all. 

It cannot be said that the apostle has laid undue 
stress on the work of the Spirit in his apologetic, as if 
taking refuge in a supernatural power, in absence of any 
other adequate guarantee in his system for holy living. 
It may be asked, Why should the divine Spirit be avail- 
able for the enlightenment or renewal of Christians 
exclusively, or even more than for that of other men ? 
The reply must be, in the first place, that neither in the 
Pauline Epistles, nor anywhere else in the New Testa- 
ment, is it said or assumed that the Holy Spirit's 
presence is confined to Christendom. The underlying 



THE HOLY SPIRIT 261 

postulate rather is that the Spirit of God, like God 
Himself, is everywhere, even in the inanimate creation, 
working towards the birth of a new world wherein 
dwelleth righteousness. He is the atmosphere of the 
moral world, ready to enter into every human heart 
wherever He finds an opening. If, therefore, He is 
in the Christian world more than in other parts of 
humanity, it must be because He finds there a more 
abundant entrance. And that, again, must be due to the 
intrinsic and superior excellence of the Christian faith. 
The Spirit of God is a sanctifier in Christendom more 
than elsewhere, because He there has at command the 

best material for His purpose. 1 

t 
1 The question how far St. Paul recognised a law of growth in 
sanctification will be considered in another connection. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE FLESH AS A HINDRANCE TO HOLINESS 

The title of this chapter indicates correctly the point 
of view from which the flesh is regarded in the Pauline 
Epistles. It is not with an abstract doctrine or theory 
of the flesh that we have to do, but with an unhappy, 
untoward fact of Christian experience — a stubborn re- 
sistance offered by a power residing in the flesh to the 
attainment of that entire holiness after which every 
sincere Christian earnestly aspires. The point of view 
is clearly indicated in this exhortation to the Galatian 
Church : " Walk in the Spirit, and do not fulfil the 
lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the 
Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are 
contrary to each other; so that ye may not do the things 
that ye would." 1 That the flesh is an obstructive in the 
way of holiness could not be more distinctly stated. 
And yet in the Epistle to the Romans the same truth is 
proclaimed, if not with greater plainness, at least with 
more marked emphasis. " Therefore, brethren," writes 
the apostle, " we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live 
after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye must 
die : but if by the Spirit ye mortify the deeds of the 

i Gal. v. 16, 17. 
262 



THE FLESH AS A HINDRANCE TO HOLINESS 263 

body, ye shall live." 1 Here to fight with the flesh is 
represented as a positive duty. We are " debtors " to 
this intent. And the fight is urgent, a matter of life 
and death. The state of the case is that we must kill 
the flesh, or it will kill us. 

We, Christians, have to wage this war as we value our 
salvation. In the seventh chapter of Romans mention 
is made of a tragic struggle with the flesh, which might, 
on fair exegetical grounds, be relegated to the pre- 
regenerate or pre-Christian state. But the fight is not 
over when one has become a believing man, and has 
begun effectively to walk in the Spirit. Thenceforth it 
is carried on with better hope of success, that is all the 
difference. It is to believing men, Christians, regenerate 
persons, that the apostle addresses himself in the above- 
cited texts. And he speaks to them in so serious a tone, 
because he knows the formidable nature of the foe from 
present, chronic, personal experience. This we know from 
that extremely significant autobiographical hint in 
1 Corinthians : "I buffet my body, and bring it into 
bondage ; lest by any means, after having preached to 
others, I myself should become a rejected one." 2 De- 
pend upon it this buffeting or bruising of the body was 
for St. Paul a serious business. He found it necessary 
for spiritual safety to be in effect an ascetic, not in any 
superstitious sense, or on a rigid system, but in the 
plain, practical sense of taking special pains to prevent 
the body, with its clamorous passions, from getting the 
upper hand. 

One thing we may note here by the way. Comparing 
1 Bom. viii. 12, 13. 2 1 Cor. ix. 27. 



264 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

these three texts one with another, we gather that 
and flesh, so far as obstructing holiness is concerned, 
are for the apostle synonymous terms. It is against the 
flesh he warns fellow-Christians ; the body is the foe he 
himself fears. Those who are familiar with the recent 
literature of Paulinism will understand the bearing of 
this remark. Some writers will have it that the two 
terms bear widely different senses in the Pauline letters. 
^dpl;, they say, is a Substanzbegriff, and acofMa a Formbe- 
griff : the word "flesh" points to the material of which 
the body consists, the word " body " to the form of our 
material organism. The distinction is made in the in- 
terest of a theory to the effect that St. Paul shared the 
Greek view of flesh and of all matter — that it is inher- 
ently evil. This theory will come up for consideration 
at a later stage. Meantime, we have to remark, that 
so far as we have gone we have found no reason to 
suppose that the conceptions of "flesh" and "body" lay 
so far apart in the Pauline system of thought as is 
alleged. 

It may surprise some that so good and saintly a man 
as the apostle Paul should have found in the body or 
the flesh so much of a hindrance to the spiritual life. 
Surprising or not, we may take it for certain that such 
was the fact. In spite of his passion for holiness, the 
flesh was constantly and obstinately obstructive. Nay, 
may we not say that it was obstructive not merely in 
spite, but in consequence of his passion for holiness? 
None knows better than the saint what mischief the flesh 
can work. Let the tragedies which have been enacted 
in the cells of holy monks bear witness. There is a 



THE FLESH AS A HINDRANCE TO HOLINESS 265 

mysterious, subtle, psychological connection between 
spiritual and sensual excitements, which some of the 
noblest men have detected and confessed. Hence it 
comes to pass, paradoxical as it may seem, that most 
earnest and successful endeavours to walk in the Spirit, 
or even to fly under His buoyant inspiration, may develop, 
by way of reaction, powerful temptations to fulfil the 
grossest lusts of the flesh. Eloquent preachers, brilliant 
authors, know that this is no libel. Times of wide- 
spread religious enthusiasm make their contribution to 
the illustration of this same law. Powerful breezes of 
the Spirit are followed by outbreaks of epidemic sin, in 
which the works of the flesh are deplorably manifest. 

Whatever surprise or disappointment it may awaken 
in us that the flesh should give trouble to such an one as 
St. Paul, we are quite prepared to discover in his writings 
traces of a subtle insight into the nature and varied 
manifestations of its evil influence. Such insight formed 
an essential feature of his spiritual vitality. It was what 
was to be expected from one who, even before he became 
a Christian, and in spite of a Pharisaic training, which 
taught him to regard the outward act as alone important, 
made the great discovery that coveting was a sin. It 
would be only an extension of that discovery if Paul, the 
Christian and the apostle, found in himself much of the 
evil working of the flesh when there was nothing in his 
outward conduct on which the most unfriendly critic 
could fasten. " Thou shalt not commit adultery," — thatis 
a commandment forbidding a definite outward act. But 
Jesus, on the Mount, had said, " Whosoever looketh on a 
woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with 



26$ st. paul's conception of Christianity; 

her already in his heart," 1 and Paul's Christian con- 
science endorsed the sentiment as, however severe and 
searching, nothing but the truth. And who can tell what 
painful inner experiences this saintly man passed through 
in this direction ? That the flesh meant for him very 
specially, though not exclusively, sexual impulse, may be 
inferred from the prominent position given to sins of im- 
purity in his catalogues of the works of the flesh. 2 A 
voluntary abstainer from marriage relations that he might 
the better perform the duties of his apostolic calling, a 
veritable " eunuch for the kingdom of heaven's sake," 3 
he rightly appears to the spectator of his great career a 
devoted, saintly, heroic man. But what, just because of 
the loftiness of his moral ideal, and the keenness of his 
insight, may he sometimes have appeared to himself? 
Less than the least of all saints ; nay, no saint at all, 
but a poor, vile, self-humiliated sinner, actually within 
measurable distance of being a " castaway." Does this 
language shock pious readers ? It certainly costs this 
writer an effort to put such words on paper. But he 
forces himself to do so, because he believes that it is along 
this road we shall most readily arrive at an understand- 
ing of what St. Paul means by his many strong words 
concerning the flesh, rather than through learned lucubra- 
tions concerning the meaning of the Hebrew word for 
flesh in the Old Testament Scriptures, or as to the pro- 
bability of the apostle having got his doctrine of the 
adp% from Philo or some other representative of Hellen- 
istic philosophy. That one statement, " I buffet my body," 
is of more value to me as a guide to his thought than all 
1 Matt. v. 28. 2 Gal. v. 19. 3 Matt. xix. 12. 



THE FLESH AS A HINDRANCE TO HOLINESS 267 

the monographs on the subject. It tells me that Saint 
Paul, while a true saint, was also a man of like passions 
with ourselves, that he had his desperate struggles with 
the flesh under very common forms of temptation, and 
that his sanctity was a victory achieved in that fell war 
by one who was prepared to sacrifice an offending mem- 
ber that the whole body might not be cast into hell. For 
the comfort of those who are manfully, though, as it 
appears to themselves, with very indifferent success, 
fighting the same battle, it is well to make this plain. 

In the foregoing remarks I have virtually forestalled 
the question, What is meant by the flesh in the Pauline 
letters, and on what ground is it there represented as the 
very seat of sin ? An unsophisticated reader, confining 
his attention to these Epistles, would probably gather 
from them an answer to this question somewhat to the 
following effect. The flesh means, of course, primarily 
the material substance of the body, and its ethical signifi- 
cance in the Pauline Epistles, as representing the sinful 
element in general, is due to the fact of its being the seat 
of appetites and passions of a very obtrusive character, 
which, though neither in themselves nor in their effects 
the whole of human sin, yet constitute its most prominent 
part, especially in the case of a Christian. Take the case 
of St. Paul himself, once more, as our example. He is 
conscious that with his mind and heart he approves, 
loves, and pursues the good; that he is a devoted fol- 
lower of the Lord Jesus Christ, and a single-minded 
servant of the kingdom of God. But he is conscious of 
distractions, temptations, hindrances, and on reflection 
these appear to him to arise out of his body. He sees 



268 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

still, as of old, a law in his members warring against the 
law of his mind. This body of death, therefore, this 
flesh, becomes to him the symbol of sin generally; he 
speaks of it as if it were the one fountain of sin, tracing 
to its evil influence not merely sensual sins, properly so 
called, though these are generally placed first in enu- 
merations, but sins of the spirit likewise, such as pride, 
envy, hatred. This prima facie answer is, I believe, not 
far from the truth. But it raises other questions not to 
be disposed of so easily. How does it come to pass that 
the flesh causes the saint so much trouble ? why does it 
lag so far behind the mind in the path of sanctification? 
We know what Philo and the author of the Book of 
Wisdom, and the Greeks from whom they drew their in- 
spiration, thought on that subject. They deemed matter 
generally, and especially the fleshly part of human nature, 
to be inherently and incurably evil. The animated matter 
which we call our bodies was in their view necessarily, 
inevitably, universally a source of evil impulse ; the prob- 
lem of the spirit being to trample its unworthy companion 
under foot, and its hope to get finally rid of it by death. 
Was this St. Paul's view ? Many modern theologians 
think that it was, and that on this important subject he 
was a disciple of the Alexandrian or Judseo-Greek philo- 
sophy. On this question it is needful to speak with care 
and discrimination. St. Paul might hold the Greek view 
without getting it from the Greeks or from any external 
source. Again, he might go a considerable way with the 
Greeks in his thoughts concerning the flesh, without 
having any cut-and- dried theory regarding it, such as 
speculative minds loved to elaborate. As a matter of 



THE FLESH AS A HINDRANCE TO HOLINESS 269 

fact, I believe the latter supposition to be pretty nearly 
correct. A reader of the Pauline Epistles gets the im- 
pression that the writer thought as badly of the flesh, 
that is of the material part of man, as did Philo, who 
beyond doubt was in entire sympathy with the Greek 
view of matter. And I apprehend that Paul and Philo 
thought so badly of the flesh for very much the same 
reason — not to begin with at least on a priori grounds 
of theory, but on practical grounds of experience. 
Philo's writings, just like those of St. Paul, are full of 
allusions to the temptations which assail the saint or sage 
arising out of the appetites and passions that have their 
seat in the flesh. But the difference between the two 
men lay here. Philo, with his leaning towards Greek 
philosophy, theorised on the subject of the flesh and its evil 
proclivities, to the effect already indicated. St. Paul, on 
the other hand, did not theorise. He contented himself 
with stating facts as they presented themselves to him 
in experience. Whether the Greek theory was known 
to him is quite uncertain ; the probability is that it was 
not. But, even if it had been, it is not at all likely that 
it would have had any attractions for him, as his interest 
in the matter involved was nowise speculative but 
wholly ethical and religious. Nay, the probability is 
that, on ethical and religious grounds, he would have 
regarded the theory with aversion and disfavour. Some 
solid reasons can be given for this statement. 

1. The theory that matter or flesh is essentially evil is 
decidedly un-Hehrew. The dualistic conception of man 
as composed of two natures, flesh and spirit, standing in 
necessary and permanent antagonism to each other, is not 



to be found in the Old Testament Scriptures. It is true, 
indeed, that between the close of the Hebrew canon and 
the New Testament era the leaven of Hellenistic philo- 
sophy was at work in Hebrew thought, producing in 
course of time a considerable modification in Jewish ideas 
on various subjects ; and it is a perfectly fair and legiti- 
mate hypothesis that traces of such influence are recog- 
nisable in the Pauline doctrine of the aap%. But the 
presumption is certainly not in favour of this hypothesis. 
It is rather all the other way ; for throughout his 
writings St. Paul appears a Hebrew of the Hebrews. His 
intellectual and spiritual affinities are with the psalmists 
and prophets, not with Alexandrian philosophers ; and if 
there be any new leaven in his culture it is Rabbinical 
rather than Hellenistic. 

2. A second consideration bearing on the question at 
issue is that, whereas, according to the Greek view the 
flesh ought to be unsanctifiable, it is not so regarded in 
the Pauline Epistles. Sometimes, indeed, it might seem 
as if the apostle did look on the flesh, or the body, as in- 
curably evil ; as when, in a text already quoted, he speaks 
of killing the deeds of the body, 1 or when he employs 
such a phrase as " the body of this death," 2 or represents 
the body as "dead on account of sin." 3 But, in other 
places, the body is represented as the subject of sanctifi- 
cation not less than the soul or spirit. Not to mention 
1 Thessalonians v. 13, where the apostle prays that the whole 
spirit, soul, and body of his brethren may be preserved 
blameless unto the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, there 
is the important text in 1 Corinthians vi. 19, 20, where 
1 Bom. viii. 14. 2 Ibid. vii. 24. 3 Ibid. viii. 10. 



THE FLESH AS A HINDRANCE TO HOLINESS 271 

the body is represented as the temple of the Holy Ghost, 
and it is set forth as a duty arising directly out of the 
consciousness of redemption to glorify God in the body, 1 
in the special sense of keeping clear of sexual impurity. 
Another very important text in this connection is 2 Cor- 
inthians vii. 1, where it is inculcated as a Christian duty 
to cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and 
spirit ; of the flesh as well as the spirit, of flesh not more 
than the spirit, there being the same possibility and the 
same need of sanctification in both. It is true, indeed, 
that the genuineness of this text has been called in ques- 
tion by Holsten, one of the strongest advocates of the 
Hellenistic character and source of the Pauline idea of 
the flesh. 2 One can very well understand why upholders 
of this view should desire to get the text in question out 
of the way. It teaches too plainly what their theory 
of necessity negatives, the sanctifiableness of the flesh. 
They have no objection to the sanctification of the body 
taught in 1 Corinthians vi. 19, because " body" is a mere 
Formbegriff ; but sanctification of the flesh — impossible, 
if, with the Greeks, St. Paul held the flesh, like all matter, 
to be inherently evil. And so, as that is held to be demon- 
strable, there is nothing for it but to pronounce 2 Corin- 
thians vi. 14-vii. 1, a spurious insertion. It is a violent, 
critical procedure, but it serves the one good purpose of 
amounting to a frank admission that the exhortation to 
purify the flesh is not compatible with the theory advo- 
cated by the critic. 

1 The point of the exhortation is very much blunted by the addi- 
tion in T.R. Kal ev T$ TTVeV/AdTl. 

2 Zum Evangelium des Petrus und des Paulus, p. 387. 



272 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

Before passing on to another point it may be well 
here to reflect for a moment on the unsatisfactoriness of 
the distinction taken between " body " and " flesh " in 
reference to the topic of sanctification. The body we 
are told is sanctifiable, because it is an affair of form ; 
the flesh, on the contrary, is unsanctifiable because it is 
an affair of substance. We are to conceive of St. Paul 
solemnly exhorting the churches to which he wrote to 
this effect : By all means take pains to sanctify the or- 
ganic form called the body, but, as for the flesh wherein 
lies the seat and power of sin, ifc must be given up as 
past sanctifying. Can we imagine an earnest man like 
the apostle trifling with his readers in so serious a mat- 
ter, by giving then an advice at once frivolous and 
absurd ? Sanctify what does not need sanctifying ; hope 
not to sanctify what most urgently needs sanctification ! 
There is nothing wrong with the bodily form; it is 
graceful and beautiful ; what is wanted is power to curb 
the fleshly desire which its beauty awakens, or the carnal 
wish to use that beauty as a stimulus to concupiscence. 1 

3. A doctrine teaching a dualistic opposition between 
flesh and spirit, and implying that flesh as distinct from 
spirit is essentially evil, ought to be accompanied by a 
Pagan eschatology, that is to say, by the doctrine that the 
life after death will be a purely disembodied one. If 
all sin spring from the body, or if nothing but evil can 

1 Vide on this point Wendt, Die Begriffe Fleisch und Geist, p. 108. 
Wendt professes his inability to conceive how a man can begin to 
make his bodily form, apart from the matter of the body, the object 
of an ethical and religious sanctification, and protests against ascrib- 
ing to the apostle a counsel amounting to nothing more than empty 
words. 



THE FLESH AS A HINDRANCE TO HOLINESS 273 

spring from it, then the sooner we get rid of it the 
better, and once rid of it let us be rid for ever, such 
riddance being a necessary condition of our felicity. Not 
such, however, was the outlook of the apostle. The 
object of his hope for the future was not the immortality 
of the naked, unclothed soul, 1 but the immortal life of 
maw, body and soul. The fulfilment of his hope de- 
manded the resurrection of the body : only when that 
event had taken place would the redemption of man in 
his view be complete. 2 To one holding this view, a 
theory involving that the soul in the future state should 
be unclothed could not fail to be repulsive. It is true 
indeed that the body of the eternal state, as the apostle 
conceives it, is not the corruptible, mortal, gross body of 
the present state, but a " spiritual body " endowed with 
incorruptibility, and apparently resembling the heavenly 
bodies radiant with light rather than this " muddy vest- 
ure of decay." 3 The point to be emphasised, however, 
is that the apostle demands that there shall be a body of 
some sort in the eternal state, even though conscious of 
the difficulty of satisfying all the conditions of the 
problem. You may say if you please that the problem 
is insoluble, and that the expression " spiritual body " 
is simply a combination of words which cancel each 
other. It is enough to remark, by way of reply, that 
that was not St. Paul's view, and the fact sufficiently 
proves that he lived in a different thought-world from 
that of the Greeks. 

While I say this, I am perfectly aware that the 
Pauline anthropology is by no means free from difncul- 
1 Vide 2 Cor. v. 4. 2 Bom. viii. 23. 3 Cor. xv. 45-50. 



274 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

ties and obscurities. The phrase " a spiritual body " is 
of itself sufficient to show the contrary. The two 
words " spiritual " and " body " seem to put in opposite 
directions, and to imply incompatible speculative pre- 
suppositions. A similar lack of theoretic coherence 
seems to confront us in other utterances on the same 
topic. Thus in 1 Cor. xv. the resurrection body is 
represented as differing not only from our present mortal 
body but even from that of the first man. " The first 
man is of the earth earthy." 1 These words not un- 
naturally suggest the view that Adam's flesh and our 
flesh are in all respects the same, both alike unfit for 
the kingdom of God and the eternal state, both alike 
mortal, corruptible, and even sinful. This accordingly 
is the construction put upon the words by the advocates 
of the theory now under discussion. But, on the other 
hand, it is not difficult to cite texts from the Pauline 
literature which seem to imply that mortality and sinful- 
ness were not natural and original attributes of human 
nature, but accidents befalling it in consequence of 
Adam's transgression. Rom. v. 12 seems to point in 
this direction ; so also does Rom. viii. 21-23, where the 
corruptibility of the creation generally is called a bond- 
age, and the body of man is represented as sharing in the 
general bondage and looking forward to redemption from 
it. The whole train of thought in this passage seems to 
imply that the present condition of things is something 
abnormal, something not belonging to the original state 
of creation, something therefore which it belongs to 
Christ as the Redeemer to remove. The same idea is 

i Ver. 47. 



THE FLESH AS A HINDRANCE TO HOLINESS 275 

suggested even by the statement in Rom. vii. 14, one 
of the texts on which chief reliance is placed for proof 
of the thesis that the Pauline anthropology is based on 
Greek dualism. " I am made of flesh (adpiuvos;'), sold 
under sin." Assuming that the writer speaks here not 
merely for himself, but as the spokesman of the race, 
we get from these words the doctrine that wherever 
there is human flesh there is sin, which seems to be the 
very doctrine imputed to the apostle by such theologians 
as Holsten and Baur. Yet the very terms in which he 
expresses the fact of universal human sinfulness suggests 
another theory as to its source. "Sold under sin." The 
words convey the notion that the sinful proclivity of 
man, while universal, is accidental, a departure from the 
normal and original state of things, therefore not irre- 
mediable. Were it a matter of natural necessity it 
were vain to cry, " Who shall deliver me ? " No man 
or angel could deliver. Only death, dissolving the un- 
happy union between vovs and adp^ could come to the 
rescue. 

On these grounds it may be confidently affirmed that 
the metaphysical dualism of the Greeks could not possi- 
bly have commended itself to the mind of St. Paul. An 
ethical dualism he does teach, but he never goes beyond 
that. It is of course open to anyone to sa} r that the 
metaphysical dualism really lies behind the ethical one, 
though St. Paul himself was not conscious of the fact, 
and that therefore radical disciples like Marcion were 
only following out his principles to their final conse- 
quences when they set spirit and matter, God and the 
world, over against each other as hostile kingdoms. But 



276 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

even those who take up this position are forced in 
candour to admit that such gnostic or Manichsean doc- 
trine was not in all the apostle's thoughts. 1 

An ethical dualism, however, of a decided character 
St. Paul does teach. If we cannot agree with those who 
impute to him Greek metaphysics, as little can we sym- 
pathise with those who in a reactionary mood go to the 
opposite extreme, and endeavour, as far as possible, to 
assign to the word crapf in his Epistles the innocent 
sense of creaturely weakness, as opposed to divine 
power, without any necessary connotation of sin. This 
is the view of Wendt, as expounded in his able tractate 
on the notions Flesh and Spirit. He tries to show that 
the Hebrew word for " flesh " bears this sense in all 
passages in the Old Testament in which the term is 
charged with a religious significance, and this result he 
brings as a ke} r to the study of Pauline texts in hope 
that it will open all doors. One cannot bit admire his 
ingenuity in the attempt, but as little can one resist the 
feeling that he is guilty of exaggeration not less than 
those whose theory it is his aim to refute. Of course 
he is not so blinded by bias as to be unable to see 
that St. Paul does frequently ascribe to the creaturely 
weakness of man both intellectual and moral aberration. 
But then he tells us that these adverse judgments on 
the flesh are " synthetic " not " analytic " ; that is, state 
something concerning the flesh not involved in the 
notion of it. " I am of flesh, sold under sin " is a syn- 
thetic proposition which proclaims not the origin of sin 
out of an essentially evil flesh, but the tyrannic power, 
1 Vide Hausrath, XeutestamentUche Zeitgeschichte, ii. 468. 



THE FLESH AS A HINDRANCE TO HOLINESS 277 

somehow acquired, of sin in an originally innocent 
flesh. It may be so ; nevertheless we cannot but note 
that for the writer the synthesis seems to have become 
so firmly established that to say " I am adptctvo^ " is all 
one with saying, " I am sold under sin." To such trans- 
formation of the synthetic into the analytic, human 
speech is liable. Consider the original etymological 
meaning of the word Jesu-it(e), then reflect what a word 
of evil omen it is now, and what damnatory judgments 
no longer "synthetic," but grown very "analytic" in- 
deed, it suggests to the average Protestant mind! 
" Flesh " seems to have become for the apostle Paul a 
term of not less similar import than " Jesuit " is for us. 
Whence this transmutation of the creaturely weakness of 
the Old Testament into the wicked carnality of the 
Pauline Epistles ? If Hellenism does not explain it as 
little does Hebrewism as interpreted by Wendt. The 
Pauline conception of the flesh seems to be a tertium quid, 
something intermediate between Hellenism and Hebrew- 
ism, the creation of a very intense religious experience, 
and of a very pronounced moral individuality. 1 

Thoughts having such a genesis are not wont to be 
expressed in the colourless measured terms of scholastic 
theology ; and if a certain element of exaggeration, one- 
sidedness, morbidity, enter into the language in which 
they are clothed, there is no cause for surprise. Can 
any such element be discerned in St. Paul's statements 

1 Such is the view taken by Harnack of St. Paul's doctrine as to 
Christ's pre-existence, and it involves a similar view of the apostle's 
doctrine as to the "flesh." Vide his Dogmengeschichte, vol. i. pp. 
755-764, 3d Aufl. 



278 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

concerning the flesh ? Those who are disposed to find a 
tinge of pessimism in this part of his teaching might 
refer in proof, not merely to the peculiarity of his 
religious history, but to the high-strung enthusiasm of 
his Christian life, to the artificial condition of enforced 
celibacy under which he prosecuted his apostolic voca- 
tion, and to his expressed preference for the single state 
as the best not only for himself but for all, especially in 
view of the near approach of the world's end. 1 It is 
certainly not easy to maintain a perfect balance of 
judgment in such circumstances, and perhaps at this 
point the great apostle falls short of the calm, tranquil 
wisdom of the greater Master. But it were a serious 
mistake to set aside his stern utterances as mere rhetori- 
cal extravagances not worthy of our earnest attention. 
Here, as elsewhere, his statements, however startling, 
are in contact with reality. It would be well for us all 
to lay to heart the humbling word : " In me, that is, in 
my flesh, dwelleth no good thing," not by way of ex- 
tracting comfort from the thought that it is only in the 
flesh the evil lies, but rather of realising that the flesh is 
ours, and of making ourselves fully responsible for the 
evil to which it prompts. No man who fails to do this 
has any right to express an opinion on the question how 
far St. Paul in his doctrine of the flesh is true to fact 
and to right Christian feeling. 

Before passing from this subject we must consider a 
text which has given rise to much controversy in its 
bearing thereon, Romans viii. 3. This, however, must 
be reserved for another chapter. 

1 1 Cor. vii. 29-31. 






CHAPTER XV 

THE LIKENESS OF SINFUL FLESH 

The text, Romans viii. 3, has already been considered in 
connection with the Pauline doctrine concerning the 
significance of Christ's death. We then found reasons 
for coming to the conclusion that the text does not, as 
is usually supposed, properly refer to Christ's death, but 
rather alludes to the redeeming virtue of Christ's holy 
life in the flesh, showing, as it does, that subjection to 
the flesh is no inevitable doom, and giving promise of 
power to believers living in the flesh to walk after the 
Spirit. Such I still hold to be the true import of the 
words: " God, sending His own Son in the likeness of 
sinful flesh and with reference to sin, condemned sin in 
the flesh." But it is obvious that these words raise 
questions on which we have not yet touched — questions 
having an important bearing on the Pauline doctrine of 
the flesh. God sent His Son in the flesh. Was Christ's 
flesh, in the apostle's view, in all respects the same as 
ours ? Would he have applied to it the epithet ' ' sinful ' ' 
as he does to the flesh of ordinary men in the expression 
" flesh of sin " (aapicbs afiaprla^ ? There have always 
been theologians ready to answer these questions in the 
affirmative. And along with this view of what St. Paul 

279 



280 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

believed concerning the flesh of Christ goes usually, if 
not by any logical necessity, a certain theory as to what 
he meant to teach in reference to the atoning function 
of the Redeemer. In discussing the apostle's doctrine 
concerning Christ's death I judged it best to make no 
reference to that theory, and to confine myself to a 
positive statement of what seemed to me to be the gist 
of his teaching on that subject. But an opportunity 
now offers itself of making some remarks on the theory 
in question, which may help to confirm results already 
arrived at, and throw some additional light on the 
apostle's whole way of conceiving Christ's earthly ex- 
perience in relation to the problem of redemption. 

The answer to the question concerning the moral 
quality of our Lord's flesh depends, or has been thought 
to depend, on the interpretation of the expression 4 ' in 
the likeness of sinful flesh" (eV ofjLoiGo/jLari crap/cos 
afAaprlas). Opinion is much divided here. There are 
two debatable questions — (1) Is the emphasis in the 
word o/jLOLGo/jLart, to be placed on the likeness, or on 
an implied unlikeness ? (2) Do the words aapicbs 
afiapTLas constitute a single idea, implying that sin is 
an essential property of the adp^ or are the two 
words separate, so that d/jLaprta^ expresses only an 
accidental, though it may be all but universal property 
of the flesh ? Either of the alternatives may be taken 
in either case, yielding four different interpretations. 
The second alternative under (1) is combined with the 
first under (2) by Baur, Zeller, and Hilgenfeld, and the 
resulting interpretation is as follows : St. Paul regarded 
sin as an essential property of the flesh, but he hesitated 



THE LIKENESS OF SINFUL FLESfit 281 

to ascribe to Christ sinful flesh, therefore he said not 
that God sent Him in sinful flesh, but that God sent 
Him in the likeness of sinful flesh, meaning likeness in 
all respects, sin excepted. Others, among whom may be 
specially mentioned LMemann, 1 combine the two first 
alternatives ; and, while agreeing with the fore-mentioned 
writers in taking sinful flesh as one idea, differ from 
them by holding that it is the apostle's purpose to 
teach that God furnished His Son with a flesh made 
exactly like ours, like in this respect that it too was a 
flesh of sin. Not that the apostle meant thereby to 
deny the sinlessness of Jesus. For though dfxaprta was 
immanent in the flesh of Christ as in that of other men, 
it was only objective sin, not subjective; it never came 
to Trapdftaais; it was prevented from doing so by the 
Holy Spirit, who guided all Christ's conduct, and kept 
the flesh in perfect subjection. A third class of inter- 
preters, such as Hofmann, Weiss, etc., combine the two 
second alternatives, treating adpt; and dfiapria as separate 
ideas, and taking ofjuoico/xa as implying limitation of like- 
ness in respect of the sinfulness of ordinary fallen 
human nature. Finally, Wendt combines the first 
alternative under (1) with the second alternative under 
(2), and takes out of the words the sense: Christ's 
creaturely nature was exactly the same as ours, to 
which sin adheres only per accidens, and the sinfulness 
of our flesh is referred to not to indicate wherein Christ 
was like us, but wherefore He was made like us. 

None of these diverse interpretations can be considered 
exegetically self-evident. They are all, from the point 
1 Die Anthropologic des Apostels Paulus, 1872. 



282 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

of view of verbal exegesis, legitimate, and our decision 
must depend on other considerations. The view sup- 
ported by Baur has a good deal of prima facie plausibility; 
but assuming his interpretation of ev ofioccofian to be 
correct, it appears to me to be an argument in favour 
of the separability of the ideas of flesh and sin. For 
why should it be supposed that the motive of the 
limitation is mere shrinking in reverence from applying 
a principle to Christ which is firmly held by the writer 
as a necessary truth? If the apostle believed that 
where aap% is there is, must be, sin, d/iaprla at least, 
if not 7rapd/3ao-is, would he who was so thoroughgoing 
in all his thinking have hesitated to ascribe it to Christ 
also? Would he not rather have done what, according 
to Ludemann, he really has done, viz. , ascribed to Christ's 
flesh afiaprLa, and then sought to guard His personal 
sinlessness by emphasising the indwelling of the divine 
Spirit as the means of preventing objective sin, d\xapria^ 
from breaking out into 7rapdj3a(ri<;? Surely he was 
much more likely to do this than to adopt the weak 
expedient of covering over a difficulty with a word. 

The first alternative under (1) is therefore decidedly 
to be preferred. The emphasis lies on the likeness, not 
on an implied unlikeness. This conclusion is confirmed 
by the construction I have put on the didactic signifi- 
cance of the whole passage. If the apostle's aim was 
to insist on the redemptive value of Christ's successful 
transit through a curriculum of temptation, then he had 
a manifest interest in making the similarity of the 
conditions under which Christ was tempted to those in 
which we are placed as great as possible. The battle 



THE LIKENESS OF SINFUL FLESH 283 

with sin must be very real for Christ as well as for us 
— not a sham fight. If in order to that it was necessary 
that Christ's flesh should be the same as ours in all 
respects, why then so it must be. Whether it was 
necessary or not is a difficult question, on which opinion 
may differ. Was that question present to St. Paul's 
mind, and if it was did he mean to pronounce an 
opinion upon it ? It is commonly assumed that the 
problem was in his view, and that we here have his 
solution. Is this really so ? 

That so deep a thinker had asked himself the question: 
What about our Lord's flesh, was it wholly like ours ? is 
probable. But that he was prepared to dogmatise on 
the question is not so likely. What if he was in a 
state of uncertainty about it, feeling the delicacy of the 
question, and the pressure of two contrary religious 
interests, each vitally important : on the one hand, the 
necessity of guarding the sinlessness of Jesus ; on the 
other, the equal necessity of making His curriculum of 
temptation most thoroughly, even grimly, real ? I do 
not think it matters much for the ascertainment of the 
apostle's mind on this point whether we take the ex- 
pression "sinful flesh" as analytic, with Baur, or as 
synthetic, with Wendt. Synthetic or not, the two 
ideas " flesh " and " sin " had become, as we saw, very 
coherent in his thought. For all practical purposes 
' ' sinful flesh ' ' had assumed for him the character of 
a single indissoluble idea, at least with reference to 
ordinary men. And just on that account he could not 
well get past the question : Was Christ's flesh an 
exception ? was there in His case no law in the mem- 



284 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

bers warring against the law of the mind ? But it 
does not follow that he was ready with his answer. 
The question is a puzzle to us, why should it not be 
to him ? And if it was, what could he do but say, 
Christ came in the likeness of sinful flesh, to the extent 
of being subject to very real temptation to sin and all that 
that may involve f That is what, when the previous 
context is taken into account, he in effect does say in 
this much contested passage. 

And so it results that the true interpretation of the 
text, Romans viii. 8, after all does not enable us to 
answer the question propounded, but leaves it an open 
question for theologians. As such, however, the most 
representative theologians of the Church have not 
treated it. The decided tendency of orthodox theology 
has ever been to regard the question as closed, to the 
effect of holding that Christ's flesh differed from that 
of ordinary men in being free from that law in the 
members warring against the law of the mind, whereof 
the apostle complains. 1 But there have never been 
lacking some Christian thinkers who have been unable 
to acquiesce in this decision. The grounds of dissent 

1 In an article on the phrase ev o^oiw^an aap/cds dfiaprias in 
Zeitschrift fur Wissenschaftliche Theologie (1869), Overbeck remarks 
that from Marcion to Baur interpreters have assigned to o/Ww/za 
a negative sense, similarity as opposed to likeness, in relation to 
d/xaprla. He characterises the history of the interpretation of this 
word as that of the almost uncontested reign of an exegetical 
monstrum of patristic controversial theology. The question has 
recently been discussed, what is the precise lexical meaning of 
o/xolojfxa. Holsten makes it signify the visible image. With this 
view Overbeck generally agrees, dissenting only from the notion 
that visibility is an essential part of the meaning. He makes 



THE LIKENESS OF SINFUL FLESH 285 

have been such as these: If Christ's personal sinlessness 
be loyally maintained, the interests of faith are suffi- 
ciently safeguarded. The more difficult it was for Christ 
to be sinless, the more meritorious. The utmost that can 
be said against the flesh in any case is, that it makes 
holiness difficult by supplying powerful sources of 
temptation. That is all that is meant by the expres- 
sion, "objective sin." Properly speaking, what the 
apostle calls "flesh of sin" is not sinful. Sin and 
sinlessness belong to the person and not to the nature. 1 
The flesh as such is in no case bad. It is the inversion 
of the right relation between flesh and spirit that is sin. 2 
Only in case the flesh as we inherit it made perfect 
holiness impossible, would it be necessary for Christ the 
sinless One to have a flesh uniquely endowed. But the 
apostle's view is not that perfect holiness, blameless 
walking in the Spirit, is impossible for Christians. He 
exhorts Church members to perfect holiness by cleansing 
themselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, 3 and 
treats Christ's moral triumph over temptation as a 
guarantee for the fulfilment of the righteousness of the 

bixoiuixa = essential identity. Cremer, Biblisch theologisches W'orter- 
buch, 7th Aufl. (1893), gives as the radical sense das Gleichgemachte, 
Bild, Abbild. With reference to New Testament use, he remarks 
that abstractly considered dfioiu/xa might signify the same thing as 
dfxoLucns, similarity, but in none of the texts where it occurs does he 
think this sense called for. The meaning which suits them all is 
Gestalt, form, not in the abstract but in the concrete. The word 
occurs four times in the Epistle to the Romans, i. 2, 3 ; v. 14 ; vi. 5 ; 
viii. 3. 

1 SoPorcher duBose, The Soteriology of the New Testament (1892), 
p. 202. 

2 So Beyschlag, Neutestamentliche Theologie (1892), vol. ii. p. 41. 

3 2 Cor. vii. 1. 



286 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

law in Christian men walking not after the flesh but 
after the Spirit. 1 If that be possible in ns, with the 
flesh as we have it, it was possible a fortiori in Christ, 
even in a flesh in all respects like ours. Finally, by 
what means could Christ's flesh be, made different from 
ours ? By the power of the Holy Ghost ? But moral 
effects cannot be produced by mere physical power. 
' ' The function of the Holy Ghost is influence and never 
mere power, ' ' 2 and its proper sphere is the will, not 
the material frame. 3 

I proceed now to make some observations on the 
theory of atonement, which is usually associated with 
this "heterodox" view as to the flesh of Christ. I 
have been accustomed to call it the theory of " Redemp- 
tion by sample." 4 The name, though not accepted by 
the advocates of the theory, sufficiently indicates the 
principle. That principle is that Christ did for Himself 
first of all what needs to be done for us, and did it by 
living a perfectly holy life in a human nature in all 
respects like ours. He sanctified the sample of human 
nature which he assumed, and so laid a sure foundation 
for the sanctification of humanity at large. Christ on 
this view was at once the thing to be redeemed, its 
redemption, and the thing redeemed, 5 and His work was 
"through His own self-perfection to perfect us." 6 A 

1 Bom. viii. 4. 2 Du Bose, Soteriology, p. 208. 

3 Among the theologians belonging to this school fall to be classed 
Dr. Jamieson of Aberdeen. His views are set forth in Profound 
Problems in Theology and Philosophy (1884) ; Discussions on the 
Atonement, is it vicarious? (1887) ; and A revised Theology (1891). 

4 Vide The Humiliation of Christ, pp. 47, 253 ff. 

5 Uu Bose, Soteriology, p. 227. ° Ibid. p. 286. 



THE LIKENESS OF SINFUL FLESH 287 

peculiar significance is attached to the death of Christ 
by some exponents of the theory. What took place in 
the crucifixion was that sin in Christ's own flesh was 
judicially condemned and executed, and so the power of 
sin in the flesh in principle overcome and abolished for 
all Christians. 

Before making critical remarks on this theory, it may 
be proper here to point out the precise relation in which 
it stands to the view of Christ's flesh, with which it is 
associated. The state of the case I take to be this. 
The theory of atonement in question demands that 
Christ's flesh be in all respects like ours, but holding 
this view does not necessitate adoption of the theory. 
Redemption by sample requires that Christ's flesh 
be a sample of the corrupt mass to be redeemed. 
But Christ's flesh might be that, and }^et redemption 
proceed on another principle. The identity of the 
Redeemer's flesh with ours would fit in to the theory 
of redemption by self-humiliation quite as well as to 
the theory of redemption by self -redemption. It would 
mean simply that Christ's temptations would be very 
fully assimilated to ours, and so become a very strong 
ground of hope. Possibly Christ's experience of tempta- 
tion would sufficiently resemble ours without such 
identity. In that case, the theory of redemption by 
self-humiliation could afford to leave the question as to 
Christ's flesh open. On the other hand, the theory of 
redemption by self -redemption cannot allow the question 
to be open. Hence the relevancy of a criticism on 
that theory in this place. We criticise a theory which 
excludes our view as to the vagueness of St. Paul's 



288 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

statement that God sent His Son in the likeness of 
sinful flesh. 

This theory, then, seems very open to criticism in the 
construction it puts on the crucifixion. In the first 
place if the d/napria in Christ's flesh was a thing which 
could be completely kept under by the holy will of 
Christ (as is admitted on all hands), was it not morally 
insignificant, and therefore not a thing calling for judicial 
condemnation and execution ? Is there not something 
theatrical in this pouring out of the vials of divine 
wrath on the flesh of Christ for the objective sin latent 
in it? It is impossible to read the eloquent declama- 
tions on this topic, in the writings of Edward Irving, 1 
e.g., without feeling that the whole affair is utterly 
unreal, without any fact-basis, a pure theological fig- 
ment. Then, on the other hand, one fails to see how 
the judicial condemnation on the cross of potential sin 
in Christ's flesh is to benefit us in the way of preventing 
the vicious bias in our flesh from breaking out into 
transgression. For though the objective sin of the 
flesh in Christ's case happily proved innocuous, it is far 
enough from being harmless in our case, teste St. Paul. 
How, then, are we to be benefited ? How will the con- 
demnation of Christ's flesh in His death deliver us from 
our body of death ? Shall we say to ourselves : in that 
death my flesh was crucified ? Alas ! the faith-mysticism 
will not help us here. The faith-mysticism may act on 
the imagination and the heart, but hardly on the flesh. 

1 Vide The Doctrine of the Incarnation Opened (Collected Writings, 
vol. v.), and the account of his view in The Humiliation of Christ, 
p. 254. 



THE LIKENESS OF SINFUL FLESH 289 

It will remain as obstinately as ever opposed to all good, 
for anything the condemnation of Christ's flesh on Cal- 
vary effected. Instead of faith-mysticism, then, must 
we have recourse to sacramental magic, and say that in 
the Lord's Supper the Lord's resurrection-body, purged 
from potential sin by the fire of the cross, passes into 
our bodies and becomes there a transforming influence, 
spiritualising, sublimating our carnal frames into the 
likeness of Christ's risen humanity ? That certainly 
was the way Irving' s adventurous spirit took in carry- 
ing out his pet theory. It seems the only course open, 
and it is the reductio ad absurdum of the theory. 

If the stress of Christ's work be placed, as perhaps on 
this theory it ought to be, on the life rather than on 
the death of the Redeemer, then the redemptive value 
of our Lord's experience lies in His heroic struggle to 
maintain perfect holiness in spite of the sinful flesh. 
Now here at least we are in contact with a fact. The 
condemnation of Christ's flesh on the cross has all the 
appearance of being a pure figment, but Christ's battle 
with temptation was an indubitable, stern reality, to 
which value must be assigned in every true theory of 
redemption. The only question is, How can it be made 
to tell for our advantage ? The apostle's answer to this 
question, so far as I can make out, is this: Christ's holy 
life in the flesh shows that for men living in the flesh 
bondage to sin is not the natural and inevitable state; 
it is a judgment on the actual condition of bondage as 
what ought not to be and need not be. Further, as the 
whole of Christ's earthly experience was in the view of 
the apostle an appointment of God for a redemptive 



290 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

purpose, that sinless life is a promise and guarantee of 
divine aid to holy living for all who believe in Jesus. 
Jesus walked in the Spirit while in the flesh, and to 
those who believe in Him God will communicate His 
Spirit to enable them to do the same. Finally, the 
culmination of Christ's victorious life in the Spirit, in a 
resurrection into pneumatic manhood from which all 
gross fleshliness has disappeared, gives us a sure ground 
of hope for the ultimate redemption of our body out of 
the natural into the spiritual, out of the corruptible into 
the incorruptible. An objective sentence of illegitimacy 
on the reign of sin in the flesh, an incipient and progres- 
sive emancipation therefrom through the strengthening 
of the spiritual powers, with the prospect of completed 
emancipation hereafter, — surely these together con- 
stitute a not inconsiderable boon! It is difficult to see 
what more we could have on any theory, unless it were 
some physical process of transformation carried on in 
the flesh even now. 

Just this the advocates of the theory of redemption by 
sample seem to think their theory secures. Their way 
of thought is so different from mine that it is with 
diffidence I attempt to expound it, but the position taken 
up is something like this. Christ is not now in process 
of redemption; the process is complete so far as He is 
concerned, and the fact must tell for our advantage. 
Christ and we are organically one. He is one with us, 
and we are one with Him — one with Him risen, not in 
hope only, but somehow even at the present time. The 
risen Christ has it in His power to make us now what 
He Himself is. And by what means ? By sacraments, 



THE LIKENESS OF SINFUL FLESH 291 

especially by the sacrament of baptism. Once more the 
sacramental Deus ex machind. The links of thought 
here are not easily traceable. It may be due in part to 
the fact that the prominent exponents of the theory are 
connected with churches deeply tinged with sacramen- 
tarianism that so much stress is laid on ritual in con- 
nection with the process of salvation. Be that as it 
may, the logic of sacramentarianism is too subtle for me. 
That the completely self-redeemed Christ should be able 
in the case of Christians to hasten the process of re- 
demption through the exceptional powers He has attained 
is conceivable. According to the apostle He is eventually 
to change our vile body into the likeness of His glorious 
body, and for anything we know the process might con- 
ceivably begin before death, or at the moment when a 
man becomes by faith a new creature in Christ Jesus. 
But why should baptism be the instrument in this 
miraculous process?' How comes it that a mere rite 
possesses such tremendous significance as to be "an 
integral part of the divine act or process of incarnation," 1 
whereby the individual incarnation of Christ becomes 
gradually the collective incarnation of redeemed human- 
ity? The reply maybe: We cannot tell; it is enough for 
us that such is the fact as declared in Pauline texts, like 
Romans vi. 3, 4, and still more remarkably in the Lord's 
great commission to His apostles before His ascension: 
"All power is given unto Me in heaven and on earth. 
Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them." 
What is this but an intimation from the risen One, that 
He is at length in possession of a power to raise 
Du Bose, Soteriology, etc., p. 358. 



292 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

humanity up to God, to impart His own risen humanity 
to men, and that the instrument by which He is to effect 
that great result through the agency of His disciples is 
baptisin. 1 We are not here concerned with the exegesis 
of supposed proof -texts, but simply with the point of 
view in support of which they are adduced. Practically 
the outcome is salvation by sacraments. This is what 
redemption of men by the self -redemption of Christ ends 
in. Christ fought a battle with the flesh unaided save 
by the Holy Spirit who dwelt in Him in all possible 
fulness. His victory makes the struggle easier for us, 
not merely by ensuring for us the aid of the divine 
Spirit through whom He conquered, but by introducing 
into the very flesh, which is the seat of our foe, the 
mysterious powers of His heavenly humanity through 
the use of consecrated spiritualised matter in the forms 
of water, bread, and wine. This recourse to sacramental 
grace as the mainstay is, in my view, a confession of 
failure. It is the mountain labouring and bringing forth 
a ridiculous birth. It is more and worse. The reductio 
ad absurdum of a certain theory of redemption, it is at 
the same time a melancholy perversion and caricature of 
Christianity. 

1 Vide Du Bose, Soteriology, etc., p. 354. 



CHAPTER XVI 



THE LAW 



The negative side of St. Paul's doctrine of justification 
was, we have seen, that a God-pleasing righteousness is 
not attainable through the keeping of the law. "Apart 
from law a righteousness of God has been manifested." 1 
The negative thesis is not less startling than the positive 
one that righteousness comes through the imputation of 
faith. One who breaks so completely with tradition is 
in danger of going to extremes. A temper of indis- 
criminate depreciation is apt to be engendered under the 
influence of which the innovator, not content with setting 
existing institutions in their own proper place, is tempted 
to refuse them any legitimate place and function. On 
a superficial view it might appear that some traces of 
this temper are discernible in the Pauline Epistles, and 
especially in the earliest of them, the Epistle to the 
Galatians. The tone in which the law is spoken of in 
that Epistle is certainly depreciatory, in comparison with 
that which pervades the Epistle to the Romans. The 
expression " weak and beggarly elements," 2 whatever its 
precise reference, applies at least generally to the Jewish 
law, and conveys the opposite of an exalted conception 

1 Bom. iii. 21. 2 Gal. iv. 9. 

293 



294 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

of its use and value. In the later Epistle, on the other 
hand, the law appears as embodying the moral ideal, as 
holy, just, good, spiritual, as only realised, not trans- 
cended, by the highest attainments of the Christian life. 
The difference is due in part to the fact that in the 
Epistle to the Romans the apostle writes in a non- 
controversial, irenical spirit, while in the Epistle to the 
Galatians his attitude and tone are vehemently polemical. 
But besides that it has to be noted that in Galatians he 
has chiefly in view the ritual aspect of the law, while in 
Romans it is the ethical aspect as embodied in the 
Decalogue that is mainly before his mind. And, as 
showing that the contrast between the two Epistles in 
this connection is only on the surface, it must further be 
pointed out that when in the earlier Epistle the writer 
has occasion to refer to the ethical side of the law, his 
manner of expressing himself is not a whit less reverential 
than in the latter. " The whole law is fulfilled in one 
word, even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as 
thyself." i 

It was indeed not possible for a man of St. Paul's mental 
and moral calibre to become under any provocation a 
reckless critic of so venerable and valuable an institution 
as the Jewish law. A clever but comparatively super- 
ficial, flippant man, like Marcion, might play that role, 
but hardly the great apostle of Gentile Christianity, 
with his religious earnestness, moral depth, and intel- 
lectual affinity for great, comprehensive views of history. 
However decisive the reaction brought about by the 
spiritual crisis he passed through when he became a 

i Gal. v. 14. 



THE LAW 295 

Christian, he must continue to believe in the divine 
origin of the law of Moses, and therefore in its immense 
importance as a factor in the moral education of the 
world. That it had a real, vitally significant function 
remained for him a matter of course ; the only question 
requiring reconsideration was, What is the true function 
of the law ? 

We know what the converted Pharisee's answer to 
that question was. The law, said St. Paul, was given to 
bring the knowledge of sin, to provoke latent sin into 
manifestation, to breed despair of salvation through self- 
righteousness, and so to prepare the despairing for 
welcoming Christ as the Redeemer from the dominion 
of sin. It was a grave, serious answer to a weighty 
question. It cannot be said that in giving such an 
answer the apostle trifled with the subject, or assigned 
to the Jewish law a function unworthy of its alleged 
divine origin. But three questions may legitimately 
be asked with reference to this part of the Pauline 
apologetic : (1) Is the Pauline view of the law in 
accordance with the function assigned to it in the 
Hebrew Scriptures ? (2) Are the functions the apostle 
ascribes to the law real, and recognised in the Old 
Testament ? (3) Is the account he gives of the law's 
functions in the four Epistles exhaustive, or does it 
need supplementing ? 

1. To the first of these three questions Dr. Baur's 
reply was a decided negative. His view of the matter 
is in substance as follows : In the great controversy 
between Judaists and himself the apostle was naturally 
led to make the antithesis between law and faith as 



296 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

broad and distinct as possible. Hence the " works of 
the law " in his anti-Jndaistic dialectics mean works of 
a purely external character into which right motive and 
disposition do not enter, and the position of the Judaist 
is supposed to be that by such external works a man 
may make himself just before God. Faith, on the other 
hand, is emptied of all ethical contents, in so far as it is 
viewed as the instrument of justification, a mere empty 
form, in itself nothing and receiving any contents it has 
from its object. But the legal works and the faith of 
the Pauline polemics are both alike mere abstractions, or 
controversial exaggerations to which there is nothing 
answering in the world of realities, or in Old Testament 
Scriptures. Especially is this true of the works of the 
law, which as they appear in the Hebrew Scriptures 
are not purely external, but the fruit of pious, God- 
fearing dispositions, and as such acceptable to God. 
Moreover, as the works of Old Testament saints are 
not pharisaical in character, neither are they pharisaical 
in spirit. They are not wrought by men who imagine 
that they stand in no need of divine forgiveness. The 
Old Testament saint knows full well that he comes short 
of perfection, that he needs divine merc}^ ; and he 
believes that there is forgiveness with God, and believing 
this he serves God hopefully and gratefully, striving to 
do God's will in all things with a pure heart, and 
trusting thereby to please God. And according to 
these Scriptures it is possible so to please God. A 
pious man can do substantially the things prescribed 
by the law, and he that doeth them is blessed in 
his deed, pleases God, and wins His favour. And the 



THE LAW 297 

law was given for that end, that it might be kept, and 
that so men might attain unto the blessedness of the 
righteous. 

Dr. Baur further maintained that even St. Paul himself 
seemed to regard the antithesis between works of the 
law and faith as a mere affair of controversial dialectics, 
and to be only half in earnest about it, the proof of this 
being that, when not actually engaged in polemics, he 
forgets his hair-spun distinctions, and speaks of works 
as the ground of the divine judgment on men, 
just as any ordinary Jew might have done. The 
texts cited to substantiate this statement are Romans 
ii. 6 ; 1 Corinthians iii. 13 ; 2 Corinthians v. 10 ; 
Cralatians vi. 7. 

The account given by Dr. Baur, of the Old Testament 
attitude toward the law and legal righteousness, is not 
entirely baseless. It is the fact that Old Testament 
saints confessed sin and trusted in God's mercy, and had 
no thought of being able to do without it. It is further 
true that they practised works of righteousness in ac- 
cordance with the law, and hoped by these to please 
God, and are represented as actually pleasing God 
thereby. It is furthermore true that these works, pro- 
ceeding from the love of God and a genuine passion for 
righteousness, were not merely externally good works of 
the pharisaic order, but works such as God who looketh 
on the heart could regard with complacency. All this 
is broadly true of the piety depicted in the Hebrew 
sacred books, even though a certain deduction may 
have to be made from the estimate on account of the 
influence of the incipient legalism, traceable in some of 



298 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

the later additions to the collection. 1 But all this the 
apostle knew as well as we, and his quarrel was not 
with Old Testament piety, or with the Old Testament 
itself. He was in accord with the prophetic spirit, out 
of accord only with the Judaistic spirit. He believed 
that the truly representative men of the Old Testament 
— Abraham, David, etc., were on his side. His very 
position is that his gospel of justification by faith is 
that which best interprets the Hebrew Scriptures, is 
true to their deepest spirit, and that the men who 
oppose him do not understand these sacred books, but 
read them with a veil upon their faces. He believes 
himself to be in close touch with the spirit of the 
ancient worthies, and doubts not that had they lived in 
his time they would have been in cordial sympathy 
with him. Was this assuming too much ? Is it going too 
far to say, that had all the Christians of the apostolic 
generation been like-minded with the authors of the 
51st, 103rd, 116th, 130th Psalms, the Judaistic con- 
troversy would never have arisen? In that case faith 
in Christ and reverence for the law in its essential 
elements might have co-existed peaceably in the con- 
sciousness of the Church as a whole, as of St. Paul 
himself in particular. But unhappily the righteousness 
of the time was not a righteousness like that of prophets 
and psalmists, but rather a righteousness like that of 
Scribes and Pharisees, the sinister growth of the post- 
exilian time. The apostle knew it well, for he had 
been tainted with the disease himself. It was a leaven 
of that kind, combined with a nominal Christianity, that 
1 Vide on this my Apologetics, pp. 321-336. 



THE LAW 299 

gave rise to the great controversy about the law. The 
manner in which the apostle speaks of his opponents 
proves this. They appear in the four Epistles, not as 
men whose general moral and religious character com- 
mands respect, but rather as men who have their own 
ends to serve, and make zeal for the law a cloak for 
self-seeking. Of course it is a plausible suggestion that 
this is their character not in truth, but only as seen 
through the distorting medium of polemical prejudice. 
But the fact probably is that there is little or no 
distortion, but merely genuine character, shown with 
the unreserve of a time of war, when the interests at 
stake demand the suspension of the conventional rules 
of courteous speech. Such men having found their way 
into the Church, controversy of the most determined 
kind was inevitable. The apostle will have to fight 
over again with them the battle he has already fought 
with himself, and to formulate for the guidance of the 
Church the principles his own religious experience made 
clear to his mind many years previously. For it Avas 
there the dialectic began, and it is in that region it may 
best be understood. The individual man, Saul of Tarsus, 
was a mirror of his time, and the process of his religious 
consciousness was but the rehearsal on a small scale of 
the conflict through which the Church attained to an 
understanding of its own faith. Thence we understand 
why the works of the law, spoken of in the Judaistic 
controversy, are not works like those of Old Testament 
saints, but either ritual performances, or works of any 
sort done from impure motives. The reason is, that it 
was only with such works Saul the Pharisee had been 



300 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

occupied. By reflection on the same experience, we 
further understand whence came the doctrine that the 
law itself was not given for the attainment of righteous- 
ness. When Saul the Pharisee began to see into the 
spiritual inwardness of the law, through the contact of 
his conscience with such a precept as, " Thou shalt not 
covet," he knew that there was no hope for him save 
in the mercy of God, and he drew the conclusion: By 
the law at its best, as a spiritual code of duty, comes 
not righteousness as I have hitherto been seeking it, i.e., 
as a righteousness with which I can go into the presence 
of a merely just God, and demand a verdict of approval. 
By the law comes rather the consciousness of sin, and 
through that a clear perception that the only attitude it 
becomes me to take up is that of one who prays, " God 
be merciful to me." The apostle's doctrine concerning 
the law must be read in the light of this experience. 
When he says, righteousness comes not by the law, he 
means, righteousness such as I sought when a Pharisee, 
the approval of God as pharisaically conceived. This 
doctrine was an axiom to the man who wrote Psalm 
130. But it was not an axiom to Saul of Tarsus, nor 
to the Judaistic opponents of Paul the apostle. There- 
fore it needed to be affirmed with emphasis, as in the 
controversial Epistles. It is not a new doctrine. It is 
a commonplace, proclaimed with vehemence by one who 
discovered its truth only after a momentous struggle to 
men who altogether or to a great extent ignored it. 
The doctrine rests on two propositions Avhich the truly 
good have believed in all ages — that man is sinful and 
that God is gracious. No man, therefore, who has self- 



THE LAW 301 

knowledge, and who cherishes a Christian idea of God, 
will have much quarrel with the doctrine, or fall into 
the mistake of imagining that Paulinism at this point 
is in conflict with the general spirit of the Old Testa- 
ment. 

As to the alleged inconsistency of the apostle's 
utterances concerning the law, two things must be 
borne in mind. First, his whole doctrine as to faith's 
function. Faith in the Pauline Epistles is by no means 
the empty form it is sometimes represented to be. It 
is not only an attitude of receptivity to- God's forgiving 
grace, but an energetic, ethical principle working towards 
personal holiness. Secondly, it has to be remembered 
that, according to the apostle's doctrine, faith works by 
love. The good works of his justified man are done in 
a filial spirit, spring out of the consciousness of re- 
demption, and as such are acceptable to God here and 
hereafter, as truly good in quality, though not necessarily 
free from all defect. Hence the apostle's conception of 
the final judgment is not the same with that of the 
Pharisee. The two conceptions agree, in so far as both 
make judgment proceed on the basis of works. They 
differ as to the character of the judge, and of the works 
judged. The judge of the Pharisaic creed is the God of 
mere justice, the judge of St. Paul's creed is the God of 
grace ; for the gracious character is indefeasible, and 
underlies the work of judgment. Then the works 
judged, as conceived by Pharisaism, are works done not 
in the consciousness of redemption and the spirit of 
sonship, but in the mercenary spirit of a hireling, or in 
the fear-stricken spirit of a slave. The apostle's con- 



302 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

ception of the judgment is in affinity with that of Christ. 
It is the judgment of the God of love making the great 
test of character the presence or absence of His own 
spirit of charity. This we may say in all fairness, while 
freely acknowledging that the judgment programme in 
Matthew xxv. 31-46 reaches a high-water mark of 
Christianised ethics, not touched by any utterance in 
the Pauline Epistles. Here, as in many other respects, 
the disciple comes behind the Master. It is not easy 
altogether to escape from the sj^stem under which one 
has been reared. Some traces of Rabbinism may cling 
to one who has made the most radical revolt from 
Rabbinism. 

2. Our second question is: Are the functions St. Paul 
ascribes to the law real, and are they recognised in the 
Old Testament ? Now, there can be no question that 
the functions ascribed to the law in the Pauline letters, 
as enumerated on a previous page, were based on actual 
results of the law's action in the apostle's own case. 
And on careful consideration it appears that the same 
result followed from the discipline of law in the history 
of the Jewish people. By the law came to that people 
a deepened consciousness of sin, an intensified keen- 
visioned moral sense. There came, also, an enhanced 
sinfulness. The Jewish people not only knew them- 
selves to be sinners better than other men, but they 
were greater sinners than other men. For the law, 
though it showed them their duty, did not incline them 
to do it, rather provoked reaction, and made their sin 
more criminal by putting them in the position of sinning 
against the light. Despair and longing for redemption 



THE LAW 303 

were the natural results of those two effects on all the 
better minds in Israel, as is apparent from the utterances 
of the prophets, very specially from Jeremiah's oracle of 
the new covenant. The only point, therefore, on which 
there is room for doubt is : Whether the results of the 
law's action, as unfolded in Israel's history, were those 
contemplated from the first as the design of the law- 
giving, or whether they were not rather the proof that 
the law had failed of its end. Now here a distinction 
may be taken between the divine end of the law, and 
the end which was consciously present to the instru- 
ments of revelation, e.g., Moses. From the view-point 
of theistic teleology, as conceived by the Hebrew mind, 
the apostle's doctrine of the law is unassailable. The 
ultimate result reveals the initial divine aim. 1 On this 
principle it is true, as St. Paul taught, that what God 
had in view from the first was the promise, and that the 
law entered to prepare for the reception of the promise, 
to be a pedagogue, a gaoler, a tutor to make Christ and 
the era of grace, liberty, and love welcome. In philo- 
sophical language, the law was a lower stage in the de- 
velopment of humanity preparing for a higher, in 
presence of which it lost its rights, though the good 
that was in it was taken up into the higher, and united 
to the initial stage of the promise to which it stood in 
opposition. As to the view taken of the end of the law 
by those who lived in the early time, without doubt it 

1 This principle must be applied with caution, else it will lead to 
some unwelcome conclusions, e.g., that God created man that he 
might fall, and the lost that they might he condemned; and that 
Christ taught in parables expressly in order to make His insusceptible 
hearers spiritually blind. 



304 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

was very different from that of St. Paul. They looked 
with hope on an institution which was destined to end 
in failure. The commandment which the apostle found 
to be unto death, they regarded as ordained unto life. 
They did not see to the end of that which was to be 
abolished. There was a veil upon their faces in re- 
ference to the law. But as time went on the veil began 
to be taken away by sorrowful experience. Spirit-taught 
men began to see that the law was given, not so much 
for life and blessedness, as for the knowledge of sin and 
misery, and that if any good was to come to Israel 
it must be through the supersession of the Sinaitic 
covenant by a new covenant of grace. That by the 
law is the knowledge of sin he understood, who asked: 
" Who can understand his errors ? " That the law was 
an irritant to transgression, Jeremiah understood when 
he said in God's name : " Which my covenant they 
brake, and I loathed them." And the very prophecy 
of a new covenant is a witness to the despair of any 
good coming out of the old one. It is an anticipation 
of the apostle's cry of anguish : " Wretched man, who 
shall deliver me?" 

We can now answer the question, How far are the 
functions assigned to the law in the Pauline theology 
recognised in the Old Testament ? There is not a little 
in the Hebrew Scriptures which might lead one to think 
that the law's functions, as conceived by men of the older 
time, were very different from those assigned to it in 
that theology in the light of history. In the initial 
period, antecedent to experience, the tone was naturally 
hopeful. From the law they expected life and blessing, 



THE LAW 305 

not death and cursing. But there were thoughts in 
God's heart which men at first did not understand, and 
that could be revealed only in the course of ages. At 
length these deeper thoughts did dawn upon devout 
minds and find utterance in prophetic oracles, though 
to men of another temper living in the "night of 
legalism " they remained hidden. The prophets were on 
Paul's side, if Moses and Ezra seemed to be on the side 
of his opponents. The dispute between him and them 
as to the purpose of the law is one which might be 
raised in reference to any epoch-making event or institu- 
tion. What, e.g., was the purpose of the American civil 
war? If the question be regarded as referring to the 
aims of men, the answer might be, It was a fight on one 
side for independence, on the other for unity. But if 
the question be taken as referring to the design of 
Providence, the answer might be, It was a struggle 
designed to issue in the emancipation of oppressed 
bondsmen. How many, as the struggle went on, were 
earnestly on the side of Providence who had little 
sympathy either with north or with south ! Even so in 
the case of the great debate regarding the Jewish law. 
Our sympathies go with Providence and with St. Paul, 
though we admit that the prosaic Judaistic constitu- 
tionalist might be right in his views as to the aims of 
Moses the legislator and of Ezra the scribe. 

3. One question more remains to be considered. Is 
the account of the law's function given in the anti- 
Judaistic Epistles exhaustive, or does it admit of supple- 
menting ? Our reply must be that that account, while 
true and valuable so far as it goes, stands in need of 



306 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

supplement in order to a complete view of the subject. 
The remark of course applies to the ritual law. On the 
ethical side the apostle's doctrine leaves nothing to be 
desired. The law summed up in love, and truly kept 
only when the outward commandment is transformed 
into an inward spirit of life — this is teaching thoroughly 
in sympathy with the mind of Christ, to which nothing 
needs to be added. It is otherwise with the repre- 
sentations of the law's functions and value in which the 
ritual aspect is mainly in view. Here the apostle's 
attitude is chiefly negative. Yet even for apologetic 
purposes in connection with the Judaistic controversy, 
a positive conception of the law's function might use- 
fully have been presented — that, viz., according to which 
it was a sort of rudimentary gospel during the pre- 
Christian time, setting forth spiritual truths in emblems, 
as pictures are employed in the training of children. 
This is the view actually set forth at length in the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, and epitomised in the motto : " The 
law a shadow of good things to come." 1 On this view 
priests, sacrifices, festivals, the tabernacle, and its furni- 
ture were emblems of the spiritual verities which came 
with Christ and Christianity, the final eternal religion. 
By the adequate exposition of this idea the author of 
that Epistle rendered an important apologetic aid to the 
Christian faith in a transition time. One naturally 
wonders why St. Paul did not employ it for the same 
purpose in his conflict with the legalist party, and that 
all the more that even in the letters provoked by that 
controversy there are not wanting indications that the 
1 Heb. x. 1. 



THE LAW 307 

point of view was not altogether foreign to his system of 
thought. 1 It has been suggested that he was prevented 
from doing so by the fact of the allegorical or symbolic 
method of interpreting the Levitical ritual having been 
previously employed in a conservative interest. But it 
is not easy to see why such a reason should have weighed 
with him any more than with the author of Hebrews. 
The true reason why St. Paul did not adopt the typical 
method of justifying the abrogation of the law, while 
assigning to it an important function in its own time and 
place, doubtless is that he had not himself arrived at the 
revolutionary conclusion along that road. His manner 
of viewing the law was determined for him by the part 
it had played in his religious history. It may be assumed 
that a similar explanation is to be given of the point of 
view adopted in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and that its 
author gained insight into the transient character of the 
Levitical religion, and the glory of the New Testament 
religion, not through a fruitless attempt at keeping the 
law with Pharisaic scrupulosity, but through a mental 
discipline which enabled him to distinguish between 
symbol and spiritual reality, shadow and substance. In 
other words, while St. Paul was a moralist he was a 
religious philosopher, while for St. Paul the organ of 
spiritual knowledge was the conscience, for him it was 
devout reason. With this difference between the two 
men was associated a corresponding difference in temper 
— the apostle, impetuous, passionate, vehement ; the 
unknown author of Hebrews calm, contemplative, lei- 
surely. The diversity of spirit is so markedly reflected 
1 Vide Note at the end. 



308 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

in their respective styles as writers, that to accept 
Hebrews as a Pauline writing is out of the question. 

Yet the apostle was not disqualified for writing that 
Epistle by any radical contrariety of view. As already 
hinted, there are indications of the idea that the law had a 
symbolical functionin his anti-Judaistic writings, although 
he did not think fit to make use of it for controversial 
purposes. Such an indication might be discovered even 
in the depreciatory phrase, "weak and poor elements." 
It suggests an educational view of the law, and specially of 
the ritual portion of it, which is in advance of the merely 
negative view of its function. It likens the Levitical 
ritual to the alphabet arranged in rows (aroLxela) which 
children were taught when they first went -to school. 
The comparison implies that in the ancient ritual might 
be found all the elements of the Christian religion, as in 
the alphabet all the elements of speech. This educational 
view of the ritual law is applied to the whole Mosaic 
law, by the figure of the heir under tutors and governors. 
The work of a tutor is not merely negative ; it is not 
merely to make the ward acquainted with his faults, or 
to dispose him to rebel against irksome restraint, or to 
discourage him by a discovery of his ignorance, and by 
all these effects to awaken in his breast a hearty desire 
to be rid of an unwelcome yoke. It is also to train him 
in moral habits, from which he will reap benefits all the 
days of his life. By implication it is taught that Israel 
derived a similar benefit from the discipline of law. In 
this great apologetic word concerning the heir it is 
recognised that the discipline of external law forms a 
necessary stage in the education of mankind, good while 



THE LAW 309 

it lasts, and fitting for a higher stage, when the heir, 
arrived at length at maturity, can be trusted to himself, 
because he has within him the eternal law of duty, the 
reason firm, and temperate will, the self-regulating spirit 
of a manly life. 1 

1 A particular instance of the typical mode of viewing the 
Levitical ritual may be found in 1 Cor. v. 7, where Christ is called, 
"our Passover" (rb irdaxoi ^/xcDi>). The idea in general form finds 
expression in one of the later Christological Epistles, that to ±he 
Colossians (ii. 17), in the identical terms used in Hebrews: "a 
shadow of things to come." 



CHAPTER XVII 



THE ELECTION OF ISRAEL 



We have now to consider the Pauline apologetic in 
relation to the last of the three topics on which it bears 
— the Election of Israel. The materials available for our 
purpose are contained in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh 
chapters of the Epistle to the Romans. 

The subject is very abruptly introduced. There 
appears to be no connection between the close of chapter 
eighth and the beginning of chapter ninth. And there 
is indeed no logical connection, but there is a very close 
emotional one. The subject is suggested to the writer's 
mind on the principle of contrast. He has been expati- 
ating with impassioned eloquence on the peace-giving 
faith, and inspiring hope of believers in Christ. But 
when he has ended his song of triumph and paused for a 
moment to recover breath, the bitter reflection suddenly 
suggests itself — in all this peace and joy of faith and 
hope most of my countrymen have no share. It is a 
reflection most painful to his feelings as a Jew who loves 
his race, and takes pride in their national prerogatives 
and privileges. But the fact that Israel is prevalently 
unbelieving is more than a source of personal grief to 
Paul the Jew ; it is a serious difficulty for him to 

310 



THE ELECTION OF ISRAEL 311 

grapple with as the apostle of the Gentiles, and the 
advocate of a universal gospel independent of Judaism, 
and as one whose mission among the Gentiles had been 
greatly successful. For did not the unbelief of Israel, 
taken along with the extensive reception of the gospel 
by Gentiles, signify the cancelling of Israel's election, 
the rejection of the Jews and the substitution of the 
Gentiles in their place as the objects of divine favour ? 
Or, if it did not signify this, was it not an argument 
against his gospel to this effect: the Pauline gospel 
cannot be true, for it is rejected by the mass of the elect 
people ? Thus does the apostle appear placed in a 
dilemma, on neither horn of which he will care to be 
impaled. How does he get out of the dilemma? 

He deals with the hard problem in two ways, in 
both of which he successfully escapes the dreaded in- 
ference that his gospel is illegitimate. First he reckons 
with the facts on the assumption that they signify an 
absolute final cancelling of Israel's election, striving to 
show that even in that case there is no presumption 
against his gospel. The argument of his opponents being: 
If you are right in your view of Christianity, then God 
has rejected his chosen people ; but such a rejection is 
impossible, therefore you are wrong ; his reply in the 
first instance is: Such a rejection is not impossible. 
This is the line of defence pursued in the ninth and 
tenth chapters. But the apostle is not content with 
this line of defence. He proceeds next to consider more 
carefully whether the facts do necessarily amount to a 
final absolute rejection of Israel, and comes to the con- 
clusion that they do not, so, of course, again evading the 



312 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

unwelcome inference of the falsity of his Gentile gospel. 
This is the train of thought in the eleventh, chapter. 
This two-sided apologetic argument we have now to 
consider in detail. 

I. The argument as adjusted to the Irypothesis of a 
cancelled election. 

The apostle guards against unfavourable inferences 
from this construction of the facts by three distinct 
arguments. The first of these is, that there was always 
an election within the election; the second, that in 
election God is sovereign and not under law to the elect; 
the third, that if Israel was rejected it was her own 
fault : she had brought it upon herself by a habit of dis- 
obedience and unbelief for which she had had a bad 
reputation all through her history. 

1. There was always an election within the election. 
This is the gist of ix. 6-9. What the apostle says here 
is in substance this : It is certainly a serious thing to 
speak of Israel's election as cancelled, for that would 
seem to amount to saying that God's word declaring 
Israel to be His peculiar treasure had been made void. 
But we must distinguish between election and election. 
There is an election that is cancellable, and an election 
that cannot be cancelled, an outer circle that may be 
effaced, and an inner circle that is ineffaceable. There 
always have been these two elections, the outer and the 
inner, an Israel of God within the Israel after the flesh, 
a seed of Jacob the child of promise within the seed of 
Abraham. The two elements can be traced all along 
the course of Israel's history ; they are very recognisable 
now. There is an Israel after the flesh, and an Israel 



THE ELECTION OF ISRAEL 313 

after the promise at this hour. And it is of the 
former only that cancelling of election can be predicated. 
The election within the election stands, for this inner 
circle is to be found within the Christian Church. It can- 
not, therefore, be said now that the word of God calling 
Israel to be a chosen race has been rendered void, except 
in a sense in which the same thing could have been said 
at any time in Israel's history, e.g., in the time of Elijah. 
2. In election Grod is sovereign. This is the import of 
ix. 10-24. The leading thought in this section is that 
in electing acts God is free ; that as no people has a 
claim to be elected, so no people has a claim to the 
continuance of its election ; that what God sovereignly 
begins He may sovereignly end. There may be good 
reasons why God should not end what he has solemnly 
begun, but they are to be found in God not in man. 
The apostle, having in view to beat down Jewish pride, 
which thought that the elect race had a claim to a 
monopoly and to the perpetual enjoyment of divine 
favour, asserts the sovereignty of God in the business 
of election in a very absolute and peremptory manner. 
Going back to the commencement of Israel's history, he 
shows how conspicuously God's sovereignty asserted 
itself even there, inasmuch as it determined which of the 
two sons about to be borne by Rebecca was to be the 
heir of the promise before the children were born, there- 
fore before anything in the conduct of the two sons had 
emerged to make the election turn on personal merit. 
The elder, it was announced beforehand, was to serve the 
younger, so excluding not merely personal character, but 
civil law and custom as a ground of choice. This might 



S14 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

seem arbitrary and even unrighteous, but the apostle is 
not careful to repel such a charge. The point he insists 
on is the matter of fact ; arbitrary or not, so stands the 
history. And he goes on to show that it was not a 
solitary instance of sovereign action, pointing out that 
God claimed the right of so acting in all cases in the 
words : " I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, 
and I will have compassion on whom I will have com- 
passion," then citing the case of Pharaoh in proof that 
God acts on that principle not merely to the positive ef- 
fect of sovereignly exercising mercy but also to the nega- 
tive effect of hardening unto destruction. An extreme 
position which naturally suggests the objection : What 
room under this doctrine for the imputation of guilt, for 
who hath resisted His will? Had this difficulty been 
stated by a devout inquirer, anxious to maintain an 
equilibrium between divine sovereignty and human 
responsibility, the apostle would doubtless have taken 
pains to soften, modify, and adjust his statements. Of 
this they certainly stand in need, for the assertion that 
God hardens men to their destruction is unquestionably 
capable of most mischievous perversion, to the detriment 
of both piety and morality. Had St. Paul been in the 
mood to pursue an apologetic line of thought, with a 
view to reconciling divine sovereignty with divine love 
on the one hand, and with human responsibility on the 
other, he could easily have found materials for the 
purpose even in the history of God's dealings with the 
king of Egypt. For what was the natural tendency of 
the signs and wonders wrought in the land of Ham? 
Surely to soften Pharaoh's heart, to the effect of letting 



THE ELECTION OE ISRAEL 315 

Israel go. God hardened Pharaoh's heart by means 
fitted and intended to have the opposite effect. And 
the fact is so in all cases. The means of hardening are 
ever means naturally fitted to soften and win. The 
apostle knew this as well as we, but he was not in the 
mood to indulge in such a strain of explanatory, con- 
ciliatory remark. He was dealing with proud men who 
thought the election of their fathers gave them a pre- 
scriptive right to divine favour. Therefore, instead of 
softening down hard statements he goes on to make 
harder statements still ; representing God as a potter 
and men as clay, out of which God can make such 
vessels as he pleases, one to be a vessel of mercy, 
another to be a vessel of destruction, to be dashed to 
pieces at the maker's will. As against human arrogance 
it is a legitimate representation, but as an exact com- 
plete statement of the relation between God and man it 
cannot of course be regarded. So viewed, it would be 
simple fatalism. 

3. How far the apostle was from intending to teach 
fatalism appears from his third argument under the first 
alternate, the object of which is to throw the blame of 
Israel's rejection on herself. This argument forms the 
leading contents of chapter x. He here brings against 
Israel the grave charge of not submitting to the right- 
eousness of God. Fully recognising the good side of 
the national character, zeal for righteousness as popu- 
larly conceived, he nevertheless holds his countrymen 
responsible for the great miscarriage of their election, 
finding in their passion for righteousness not only a lack 
of knowledge or spiritual insight, for which they might 



316 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

be pitied, but a culpable spirit of self-will. He ascribes 
to them the ambition to establish a righteousness which 
they can regard as their own achievement. They are too 
proud to be debtors to God. They desire to be able to 
say : " God, I thank Thee, I am not as other men." 
Hence the gospel of pardon to the sinful has no attrac- 
tion for them. Its very simplicity is an offence to their 
pride. They are unbelievers, not because they have not 
heard the gospel, or have not understood its meaning. 
They have heard enough, and they have understood too 
well. And the present unbelief is but the reproduction 
of a standing feature in the character of the race in all 
its generations, which provoked the remonstrances of 
God's messengers from Moses to Isaiah. Moses said : " I 
will provoke you to jealousy by a no-nation, by an unwise 
nation will I anger you," thereby hinting a threat of 
degradation from the position of the elect race. Isaiah 
still more outspokenly revealed such a divine purpose of 
disinheritance by signalising on the one hand the honour 
God had received among the outside peoples, and on 
the other hand the indifference and even hostility with 
which His messages by the prophets had been treated b}^ 
the chosen nation. The drift of the citations is : Un- 
belief and disobedience have been features of the Jewish 
national character all through her history, provoking 
God to repent of His choice, and to threaten disinherit- 
ance. The same features reappear in the living genera- 
tion, in exaggerated form, in reference to the mission of 
Jesus ; till now at length the divine patience is all but 
exhausted, and the oft-repeated threat is on the point 
of becoming an accomplished fact. 



THE ELECTION OF ISRAEL 317 

II. But at this point the thought of the apostle takes 
a new turn. He recoils from the idea of an absolute and 
final disinheritance ; nay, as we shall see, he finds even 
in the prophetic oracles which threaten such a disaster 
a bit of solid ground whereon patriotic hope can plant its 
foot. Looked at broadly, the relative oracles do seem to 
point at complete rejection ; therefore, the question 
inevitably arises whether that is really what was 
intended and what is now actually happening. The 
apostle does not shirk the question. He plainly asks 
it, and as plainly answers it, and that in the negative. 

" I say, then, hath God thrust away His people? God 
forbid ! " He speaks vehemently, and he has a good 
right. For he too is an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, 
of the tribe of Benjamin. And he speaks confidently, 
again with good right. For he remembers his own 
history, that of one who also had been unbelieving and 
disobedient, and he cannot but hope that God, who had 
mercy on him, has grace in store for his countrymen, 
notwithstanding all their provocations. Moved at once 
by patriotism, and by the hope inspired by his own 
conversion, he sets himself to put as encouraging a 
construction on the facts as possible. In the first place, 
he lays stress on the mere fact of the election. " God 
hath not thrust away His people whom He foreknew." x 
He has indeed already combated the idea that the act of 
election gives the elected a claim to perpetual enjoyment 
of the privilege. But quite compatibly with that 
position, he holds that an act of election may bring God 
under obligation to Himself, that an act of that kind 
1 Mom. xi. 2. 



318 st. paul's conception op Christianity 

once solemnly performed cannot lightly be recalled 
without loss of dignity. It is therefore, in his view, a 
strong point in favour of any people that God hath fore- 
known or chosen it to any signal position in history. The 
dignity of the divine character is on the side of con- 
tinuance. From this point of view it may be affirmed 
that "the gifts and the calling of God are without 
repentance." 1 Next the apostle extracts comfort from 
the consideration that now, as in Elijah's time, there are 
doubtless more faithful ones than at first appears ; that 
the remnant, the inner circle of the elect, is not by any 
means so inconsiderable a body as in hours of depression 
one is apt to suppose. When Elijah thought he stood alone 
in a faithless, apostate time, there were seven thousand 
men who had not bowed the knee to Baal, — a small num- 
ber compared with the whole nation, but a great number 
compared with one man. So now the sad-hearted apostle 
would bear in mind that there were not a few believing 
Israelites in all the churches. " So then also in the 
present time there is a remnant according to the election 
of grace." 2 

Still the sad fact remained that the great majority of 
the Jewish nation were unbelievers. What is to be said 
of them ? In the first place, it must be sorrowfully 
acknowledged that they have been blinded by inveterate 
prejudice, in accordance with Scripture representations. 3 
The picture of a blind, decrepit old man, bowed down 
with age and infirmity, suggested by the concluding words 
of the quotation from the Psalter, is a very pathetic 
representation of a people in a state of religious senility. 
1 Bom. xi. 29. 2 Ibid. xi. 5. 3 Ibid. xi. 7-10. 



THE ELECTION OF ISRAEL 319 

When a people gets to this senile condition in religion, 
its inevitable fate, one would say, is to stumble and 
fall ; for blind, feeble old age can neither see obstacles 
in the way, nor recover its balance when it strikes its 
foot against a stone. 

What then ? Is Israel's doom to stumble and fall and 
die, and disappear from the face of the earth, like an aged 
man when the powers of physical nature fail ? That is 
the question the apostle has to face. " I say then, did 
they stumble (over the Christian faith) that they might 
fall (finally and irretrievably) ? 1 Not this either can 
he believe. He repels the idea with another energetic 
fjurj ryevoiro. But is it that he simply will not believe 
it ? or has he any shadow of a reason for taking up this 
position? It must be confessed that the prospect of 
discovering such a reason is at first sight not encourag- 
ing; for what can befall blind, tottering old age but 
death and burial? It is easy to see that the apostle is 
conscious of having a stiff piece of argument on hand. 
His " I say then's," and his " God forbid's," are the 
sure index of laborious effort. But a patriotic heart 
can discern a " bit of blue sky " where other eyes can 
see nothing but dark clouds. The apostle finds the bit 
of blue sky even in the threatening words quoted from 
the song of Moses: "I will provoke you to jealousy 
by them that are no people " ; and backs up his firj 
yevocTo by the remark: " But by their fall salvation to 
the Gentiles, unto the provoking of jealousy in them." 2 
Paraphrased, his reasoning is to this effect : The facts do 
not mean final, irretrievable rejection ; the construction 
1 Bom. xi. 11. 2 Ibid. xi. 11. 



320 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

I, taking encouragement from the words of Moses, put 
on the facts is this : That which has been the occasion 
of stumbling to unbelieving Jews, Christ crucified, has 
brought salvation to the Gentiles ; and salvation has 
come to the Gentiles to make unbelieving Jews feel 
envious at the loss of privileges that have fallen to the 
lot of others, and desirous to recover them. It is an in- 
genious turn of thought ; but, for St. Paul, it is more 
than that — a deep conviction firmly rooted in his mind, 
and influencing his whole conduct. For even when he 
is busy evangelising the Gentiles, he has his countrymen 
in view, hoping to reach them in a roundabout way 
through the conversion of heathens to the Christian 
faith. When we see him turning his back on the Jewish 
synagogue, and addressing himself to Pagans, we might 
think he is abandoning the Jews to their fate in a huff, 
and that he is not going to trouble himself any more 
about them. But it is not so. He is only changing his 
tactics. Having failed to win Jews to Christ by direct 
preaching of the gospel, he is trying to spite them into 
faith. " Inasmuch as I am an apostle of the Gentiles, 
I magnify mine office, if by any means I may provoke to 
emulation my flesh, and may save some of them." 1 That 
is, I do my utmost to convert the non-elect peoples that 
the elect people may be made jealous, and at length 
accept the grace of God in the gospel it has hitherto 
despised. Such is the apostle's modus operandi, and 
such his motive ; and he expects his Gentile readers to 
sympathise with him both in method and in motive. 
They will lose nothing, he assures them, by such generous 
1 Bom. xi. 14, 15. 



THE ELECTION OF ISRAEL 321 

conduct. If they have benefited by the fall of the Jews, 
they will benefit still more by their rising again. The 
ultimate union of Jew and Gentile in one commonwealth 
of religious faith will be as life from the dead to a world 
long cursed with alienations between man and man, race 
and race. 

The foregoing thought, that the rejection of the Jews in 
favour of the Gentiles was not an absolute rejection, but 
only a new way of working beneficially on the Jewish 
mind, possesses genuine biographic interest as the utter- 
ance of a noble man animated by the invincible optimism 
of Christian patriotism. But it is also of value as throwing 
light upon St. Paul's way of thinking on the subject of 
election. These chapters of the Epistle to the Romans 
have been, by scholastic theology, put to uses for which 
they were never intended. They are not a contribution 
to the doctrine of the eternal predestination of individuals 
to everlasting life or death. Their theme is not the 
election of individuals, but of a people. And the point 
of view from which the principle of election is contem- 
plated is historical. The writer treats of divine choices 
as they reveal themselves in this world in the career and 
destiny of nations. But still more important is it to note 
that in these chapters election is not conceived of as an 
arbitrary choice to the enjoyment of benefits from which 
all others are excluded. Election is to function as well 
as to favour, and the function has the good of others 
besides the elect in view. As the Jews, according to the 
Hebrew Scriptures, were chosen to be a blessing eventually 
to the Gentiles, so, according to the apostle, the Gentile 
no-nations were chosen in turn to be God's people, for 



322 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

their own good doubtless, but also for the spiritual benefit 
of the temporarily disinherited Jews. It is unnecessary 
to point out that this view is in accordance with the 
uniform teaching of Scripture, and very specially with 
the teaching of Christ, in which the elect appear as the 
light, the salt, and the leaven of the world. It is a vital 
truth strangely overlooked in elaborate creeds large 
enough to have room for many doctrines much less 
important, and far from sufficiently recognised, as yet, 
even in the living faith of the Church, though the 
missionary spirit of modern Christianity may be regarded 
as an unconscious homage to its importance. 

Before passing from this topic it may be worth while 
to note the figures employed by the apostle to denote the 
function of the elect in reference to the world. Whereas 
our Lord employed for this purpose the emblems of light, 
salt, and leaven, St. Paul uses the analogies of the first- 
fruits of a harvest presented as an offering to God and 
so sanctifying the whole crop, and of the roots of a tree 
as determining the character of the tree and of its pro- 
duce. 1 The former analogy assigns by implication to the 
elect a representative character. They are the ten men in 
Sodom whose presence saves the whole guilty community. 
The latter analogy ascribes to the elect a vital influence 
in society. They are the roots of the social tree, from 
which rises up through trunk and branches a spiritual 
sap, to be ultimately transmuted into Christian deeds 
and virtues. 

The apostle expresses his belief that Israel will at 
length be provoked to jealousy, in other words that the 
1 Bom. xi. 16. 



THE ELECTION OF ISRAEL 323 

now unbelieving elect race will one day be converted to 
Christianity. This cheering hope occupies the princi- 
pal place in his thoughts throughout the remainder of 
the eleventh chapter. 1 Here again he has recourse to 
metaphor to aid him in the expression of his views with 
regard both to the present and to the future. His figure 
this time is taken from the process of grafting. What 
has happened is that some branches of an olive tree have 
been broken off, and a wild olive slip, the Gentile Church, 
has been grafted in their place. The branches were 
broken off for unbelief, but it is hoped that their unbelief 
will not be final, that on the contrary the severed 
branches will be engrafted on the tree. 2 The parable is 
in some respects defective. The disciple here comes far 
behind the Master, whose parabolic utterances were so 
true to nature. The process of grafting a wild slip 
on a good olive is in the natural sphere useless, and 
the process of regrafting broken-off branches impossible. 
But St. Paul's idea is clear enough. He expects a time 
when Jew and Gentile shall be united in one Church. 
He cannot believe in the final unbelief of Israel. As 
little can he believe in the utter rejection of Israel. The 
character of God, as he conceives it, forbids the thought. 
God must be consistent with Himself, stable in His ways 
of action, therefore it must be held firmly as a great 
principle that His gifts and calling are without repent- 
ance ; always, of course, without prejudice to the divine 
independence and freedom, which must ever be strenu- 
ously asserted against pretensions to perpetuity of priv- 
ilege on the part either of Jew or of Gentile. For 
1 Bom. xi. 23-36. 2 Bom. xi. 17-23. 



324 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

while God owes nothing to man He owes something to 
Himself. It is God-worthy to be unchanging, and on 
this firm foundation rests the great word : djjLera/jLeXrjTa 
ra xapijfjLara nai r) /cXfjcns rod Oeov. 

It is well to note here the relativity of Biblical utter- 
ances, and the necessity of balancing one statement 
against another. In a sentence going before the one 
just quoted, the apostle ascribes diroTofjbla to God, in 
the Authorised Version rendered "severity," the literal 
meaning being propensity to prune or lop off. In this 
sentence, on the other hand, he ascribes to God just the 
opposite quality, a propensity to continue privileges once 
conferred. It is an antinomy, but not one of the kind 
which some have found in the apostle's writings, antino- 
mies which he makes no attempt to reconcile, nay, does 
not even seem to be conscious of. He is conscious of the 
antinomy in this case, and offers a solution. His solution 
is to treat the pruning, the cutting off, or, to revert to a 
previous form of expression, the blinding or hardening, as 
partial and temporary. " All Israel shall be saved," 1 he 
boldly avers, taking courage from Old Testament texts 
which seem to point that way. The mystery of the past 
shall be matched by a mystery to be revealed in the future. 
The mystery of the past, hid in God, not from Him, only 
from men till the time of manifestation, was the admission 
of the outside nations to participation in the Messianic 
salvation. That mystery, of old a secret known only to 
the initiated few, inspired prophets and poets, is now a 
fact patent to all the world, a mystery no longer. The 
other mystery, the mystery of the future, is the ultimate 
1 Bom. xi. 26. 



THE ELECTION OF ISRAEL 325 

softening of Israel's hard, impenitent heart, so that she 
shall be willing to be united with converted pagans in 
one grand fellowship of faith and hope and worship. St. 
Paul expects this, because Israel, though hostile to Chris- 
tianity, is yet beloved of Providence for the sake of de- 
vout forefathers, who trusted God, served Him faithfully, 
and received from Him promises of eternal friendship. 1 
He even expects it on the ground of equity, or what we 
may call poetic justice. As Gentiles have benefited from 
Jewish unbelief, receiving the offer of what Israel had 
refused, as the beggars in the highway were invited to 
the supper which well-to-do people had politely declined, 
so it was meet and fair that Jews should benefit from 
the mercy shown to Gentiles and at length share it with 
them. 2 So the final issue will be : all alike guilty in 
their turn of unbelief, and all alike partakers of divine 
mercy ; no room for envy, and to God all the glory. 3 

" God hath shut up all unto disobedience, that He 
might have mercy upon all." Such is the last word of 
this magnificent apology at once for Paulinism and for 
divine Providence. Like all great generalisations, it 
suggests more than it expressly teaches, fascinating the 
imagination by its vagueness and provoking questions 
which it does not answer. It breathes the spirit of op- 
timism, and encourages the larger and even the largest 
hope, yet one knows not how far he may with certainty 
infer therefrom the final salvation of all men or even the 
conversion of the Jews. It looks as if St. Paul himself 
had been led on by the resistless logic of his great argu- 
ment, and by the inspiration of the divine Spirit, to pen a 
1 Mom. xi. 28. 2 Ibid. xi. 30, 31. s jb idt ^ 32. 



326 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

sentence whose depths he felt himself unable to fathom. 
And so argument gives place to worship, apologetic to 
admiration of the inscrutable wisdom of God, to whom 
be the glory for ever. Amen. 1 

1 Bom. xi. 33, 36. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

CHRIST 

It may appear a grave defect in our treatment of 
Paulinism that so important a theme as this should be 
taken up at so advanced a stage. Its postponement may 
be deemed the more reprehensible that there is nothing 
binding us to a particular order in the arrangement of 
topics, and that one might begin the presentation of the 
Pauline conception of Christianity with any of the great 
cardinal categories of the system, and therefore with the 
person of Christ. 1 But there are advantages to be gained 
by assigning to this august theme a position near the end 
of our discussions. For one thing, we thereby raise the 
topic out of the region of controversy into the serener 
atmosphere of calm contemplation. The formulation of 
Pauline theology had, as we now know, a polemical origin, 
and from first to last we have been pursuing our studies 
under the shadow of Judaistic antagonism. But now at 
length we come into the sunshine, and can contemplate 
the Lord of the Church as He appears in the pages of 

1 Weizsacker remarks that, in endeavouring to present in a con- 
nected view the doctrinal utterances in St. Paul's Epistles, "we can 
start just as well from his doctrine of Christ as from that of the 
means of salvation, or, to go a step further back, from that of sin." 
— The Apostolic Age of the Christian Church, vol. i. p. 141. 

327 



328 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

the apostle, not as the subject of a theological debate, but 
as the object of tranquil religious reverence. Another 
advantage resulting from taking up the present theme at 
this late stage is that we bring to the study of it all the 
light to be obtained from acquaintance with the Pauline 
system of thought in general, and in particular with his 
doctrine of redemption. 1 

For it is beyond doubt that St. Paul's conception of 
Christ's dignity was closely connected with his faith in 
Christ as the Redeemer. Jesus was for Him the Lord 
because He was the Saviour. The title Lord frequently 
occurring in the Pauline Epistles means "the One who 
by His death has earned the place of sovereign in my 
heart, and whom I feel constrained to worship and serve 
with all my heart and mind. " 2 The doctrine of Christ's 
Person in these Epistles is no mere theological specula- 
tion ; it is the outgrowth of religious experience, the 
offspring of the consciousness of personal redemption. 

But the connection between the two topics of Christ's 
Person and work in the apostle's mind is not merely 
aesthetic. His whole manner of conceiving Christ's 
redemptive work rendered certain conceptions concern- 
ing the Redeemer's Person inevitable. To see this we 
have only to recall the lessons we have learned in our 
past studies on the former of these topics. 

By the vision on the way to Damascus Saul of Tarsus 

1 R. Schmidt, in his Die Paulinische Christologie (1870), strongly 
insists on this order of treatment. " The question as to the connec- 
tion of the doctrine on Christ's Person with the apostle's distinctive 
doctrine of salvation is indispensable" (p. 4). 

2 Such is the connection of thought in such texts as Gal. vi. 14 
and Bom. v. 1. 



CHKIST 329 

became convinced that Jesus was the Christ. From this 
conviction the inference immediately followed that Jesus 
must have suffered on the cross not for His own sin but 
for the sin of the world, the choice, on the convert's view 
of the connection between sin and death, lying between 
these two alternatives. The crucified Christ for the con- 
verted Pharisee became a vicarious Sufferer. But this 
character of vicariousness could not be confined to the 
Passion. It must be extended to the whole earthly 
experience of Jesus. That experience was full of in- 
dignities, beginning with the circumcision of the Child, 
if not before, and ending with the bitter pains of the 
cross. These indignities one and all must be conceived 
of as vicarious, and therefore redemptive collectively and 
separately. Christ became a Redeemer by subjection to 
humiliation, and each element in His humiliation made 
its own contribution to redemption, procuring for men a 
benefit corresponding to its nature — redemption from 
legalism, e.g., by the Redeemer's subjection to law. 
Christ's experience of humiliation was an appointment 
by God. But it was also Christ's own act. He hum- 
bled Himself; His whole earthly experience was a long 
course of self-humiliation, and the redemption He achieved 
was a redemption by self-humiliation. 

If this be, as I believe it is, St. Paul's theory of 
redemption, then it inevitably involved one other step 
— a step out of time into the eternal. The whole 
earthly life of Christ was a self-humiliation in detail. 
But how did it begin? In a divine mission? Doubt- 
less : God sent His own Son. But to make the concep- 
tion of Christ's earthly experience as a humiliation 



830 ST. PAULAS CONCEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 

complete, is it not necessary to view it as a whole, and 
regard it as resulting from a foregoing resolve on the 
part of Christ to enter into such a state? If so, then 
the necessary presupposition of the Pauline doctrine of 
redemption is the pre-existence of Christ, not merely in 
the foreknowledge of God, as the Jews conceived all 
important persons and things to pre-exist, or in the 
form of an ideal in heaven answering to an imperfect 
earthly reality, in accordance with the Greek way of 
thinking, but as a moral personality capable of forming 
a conscious purpose. 1 

This great thought finds classic expression in the 
Epistle to the Philippians, 2 as to the authenticity of 
which little doubt exists even among the freest critical 
inquirers. But we do not need to go outside the four 
great Epistles for traces of the idea. It is plainly hinted 
at in the words: " Ye know the grace of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He 
became poor." 3 Nothing more than a hint is needed, 
for in view of the apostle's doctrine of redemption, the 
conception of a great Personality, high in dignity but 
lowly and gracious in spirit, freely resolving to enter 
into a state of humiliation on earth, almost goes without 
saying. It is what we expect, and it does not require 



1 On the difference between the Pauline idea of pre-existence and 
the notions entertained by Jews and Greeks, vide Harnack's Dogmen- 
geschichte, vol. i. pp. 755-764, 3te Aufl., consisting of an appendix on 
the idea of pre-existence. For the religious value of St. Paul's view 
on this point vide Weizsacker's Apostolic Age, p. 146. Neither of 
these writers has any doubt that St. Paul believed in and taught the 
pre-existence of Christ. 

2 Chap. ii. 5-9. 3 2 Cor. viii. 9. 



CiiRis? 331 

a multitude of very explicit texts to overcome scepticism 
and convince us that it really entered into the Pauline 
system of thought. 

This conception of the pre-existent Christ immediately 
raises other questions. In what relation does this Being 
who humbled Himself stand to man, to the universe, 
and to God ? Materials bearing on all these topics may 
be found in the letters which form the chief basis of our 
study. 

1. The apostle says that Christ was made of a woman, 1 
and that He was sent into the world in the likeness of 
sinful flesh. 2 That is, He came into the world by birth, 
like other men, and He bore to the eye the aspect of 
any ordinary man. But though Christ came in the like- 
ness of the flesh of sin, He was not, according to the 
apostle, a sinner. He ' ' knew no sin. " 3 The mind that 
was in Him before He came ruled His life after He 
came. He walked in the Spirit while on this earth, the 
Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness. Yet St. 
Paul conceived of the resurrection as constituting an 
important crisis in the experience of Christ. Thereby 
He was declared to be, or constituted, the Son of God 
with power. Thereafter He became altogether spiritual, 
even in His humanity the Man from Heaven.^ The 
expression suggests that Christ, as St. Paul conceived 
Him, was human even in the pre-existent state, so that 
while on earth He was the Man who had been in heaven, 
and whose destination it was to return thither again. 
This view would seem to imperil the reality of the 

1 Gal. iv. 4. 2 Bom. viii. 3. 

3 2 Cor. v. 21. 4 1 Cor. xv. 47. 



332 st. 

earthly state as something inadequate, phantasmal, tran- 
sitory, and a mere incident in the eternal life of a Being 
not of this world; not a true man, though "made in the 
likeness of men," and " found in fashion as a man." 1 
But the soteriological doctrine of the apostle demanded 
that Christ should be a real man, and that His human 
experience should be in all respects as like ours as 
possible. Even in respect to the flesh of sin the like- 
ness must be close enough to insure that Christ should 
have an experience of temptation sufficiently thorough to 
qualify Him for helping us to walk in the Spirit. 

Among the realistic elements in the Pauline concep- 
tion of Christ's humanity may be reckoned the references 
to the Jewish nationality andDavidic descent of our Lord. 
These occur in the Epistle to the Romans, 2 which is 
irenical in aim, and might therefore not unnaturally be 
regarded as indicating the desire to conciliate rather 
than the religious value they possessed for the writer's 
own mind. Such references are indeed not what we 
expect from the apostle. His interest was in the 
universal rather than in the particular, in the human 
race rather than in any one nation, even if it were the 
privileged people to which he himself belonged. Then 
it is not easy to conceive of him as attaching vital im- 
portance to Davidic descent, in the strictly physical sense, 
as an indispensable condition of Jesus being the Christ 
and the Saviour of the world. He rested his own 
claims to be an apostle on spiritual rather than on 
technical grounds, and we can imagine him holding that 
Jesus might be the Messiah though not of the seed of 
1 Phil. ii. 7, 8. 2 Rom. i. 3 ; ix. 5. 



CHRIST 333 

David, just as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
maintained that Jesus was a priest of the highest order 
though not belonging to the tribe of Levi. Instead of 
reasoning from Davidic descent to Messiahship, St. Paul 
might invert the argument and say: Because Christ, 
therefore David's seed; just as he said of believers in 
Christ: "If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's 
seed "; 1 u seed " in both cases being understood in an 
ideal not in a literal sense. But, all the more just on 
that account, it is significant that he does think it worth 
while to state that Jesus was "of the seed of David 
according to the flesh." It maybe taken as indicating 
two things: that St. Paul believed in Christ \j descent 
from David as a matter of fact, and that he regarded 
it as a fact of some interest. The statement occurs in 
a passage at the commencement of his most important 
Epistle, in which he carefully indicates his Christological 
position, and it may therefore legitimately be regarded 
as counting for something in that position. Obviously 
the divine Sonship is for him the main concern, but it 
does not follow that the other side is for him a thing of 
no moment. And wherein lies its value ? Why say 
Christ is a Jew and a Son of David when stating a truth 
which eclipses these facts and reduces them apparently 
to utter insignificance, viz., that He is the Son of God? 
Because he desires to affirm the reality of Christ's 
humanity, not in an abstract form, but as a concrete, 
definitely-qualified thing: Jesus a real Man; a Jew with 
Hebrew blood in His veins, and possessing Hebrew 
idiosyncracies, physical and mental; a descendant of 
1 Gal. iii. 29. 



S34 ST. PAULAS CONCEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 

David with hereditary qualities inherited from a long 
line of ancestors running back to the hero-king. Such 
seems to have been St. Paul's idea, and it is worth 
noting as a thing to be set over against any traces of 
apparent docetism in his Epistles, and against the notion 
that he regarded Christ's earthly life in the flesh as 
possessing no permanent significance — a mere transitory 
phenomenon that might with advantage be forgotten. 1 

Yet nationality and definite individuality, while not 
irrelevant trivialities, were far from being everything 
or the main thing for St. Paul. For the enthusiastic 
apostle of Gentile Christianity the universal relation of 
Christ to mankind was of much more importance than 
his particular relation to Israel or to David. And, as 
was to be expected, he had a name for the wider relation 
as well as for the narrower. The Son of David was 
for him, moreover and more emphatically, "the second 
Man." 2 The title assigns to Christ a universal, repre- 
sentative significance analogous to that of Adam. It is 
not merely a title of honour, but a title indicative of 
function. It points out Christ as one who has for His 
vocation to undo the mischief wrought by the trans- 
gression of the first man. Hence He is called in sharp 
antithesis to the Adam who caused the fall the last 

1 There is nothing decisive in the Pauline Epistles concerning the 
miraculous birth of Christ. The expression £k <nr^p/xaTos Aaveld Kara 
a-dpKa might even be held to exclude it, except on the assumption that 
Mary, as well as Joseph, was of the line of David. If connection 
with David depended on Joseph only, Jesus might be more exactly 
described as Son of David /card vbfiov than /card a-dpKa. The expres- 
sion yevd/xevov e/c ywaiKds fits into, but does not prove, birth from a 
virgin. 

2 1 Cor. xv. 47. 



CHRIST 335 

Adam made into a quickening spirit. 1 As the one brought 
death into the world, so the other brings life. " As in 
Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive." 2 

2. That in a system of thought in which Christ stands 
in a vital relation to the whole human race He might 
also be conceived as occupying an important position in 
relation to the universe it is not difficult to believe. It 
is well known that in the Christological Epistles ascribed 
to St. Paul, especially in the Epistle to the Colossians, a 
very high cosmic place is assigned to Christ. He is there 
represented as the First-born of all creation, nay, as the 
originator of the creation, as well as its final cause; all 
things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, 
angels included, being made by Him and for Him. 3 
This goes beyond anything to be found in the four 
leading Epistles. But even in these we find rudiments 
of a doctrine as to the cosmic relations of Christ which 
might easily develop into the full-blown Colossian thesis 
under appropriate conditions. For St. Paul, as for 
Jesus, it was an axiom that the universe had its final 
aim in the kingdom of God, or in Christ its King. 
This truth finds expression in several familiar texts, as 
when it is said : ' ' All things work together for good to 
them that love God " ; 4 or again : ' ' All things are yours, 
and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's. ' ' 5 The groaning 
of the creation in labour for the bringing forth of a new 
redeemed world is a graphic pictorial representation of 
the same great thought. 6 It is only the complement of 
this doctrine that Christ should be represented as having 

1 1 Cor. xv. 45. 2 Ibid. xv. 22. 3 Col. i. 15, 16. 

4 Bom. viii. 28. 5 1 Cor. iii. 23. 6 Bom. viii. 22. 



336 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

the control of providence, or as the Mediator of God's 
activity in the world. This is done when it is stated 
that God ' ' hath put all things under His feet " ; 1 and 
still more explicitly in another text from the same 
Epistle, where Jesus Christ is described as the one Lord 
by whom, or on account of whom, are all things. 2 The 
reading varies here. If it were certain that 81 ov is the 
correct reading, we might find in this passage the 
doctrine of a mediatorial action of Christ in creation, 
and not merely in providence, while from the reading 
Si bv the latter only can be inferred. But indeed, in 
any case, from providential power to creative is only 
one step. He who directs providence in some sense 
creates. He furnishes the divine reason for creation, 
and is the Logos, if not the physical cause, of the uni- 
verse. And in this point of view, the doctrine of 
Christ's creative activity is thoroughly congruous to 
the Christian faith, and altogether such as we might ex- 
pect a man like St. Paul to teach. The rationale of that 
doctrine is not the idea of divine transcendency which, 
in the interest of God's majesty, demands that all His 
action on and in the world be through intermediaries. 
It is rather an ethical conception of the universe, which 
demands that all things shall exist and be maintained 
in being for a God- worthy purpose. 

3. In passing to the question as to the relation of 
Christ to God as set forth in the Pauline Epistles I 
remark that the titles most commonly applied to Christ 
by the apostle in his other Epistles are just those Ave 
found in use in the Primer Epistles: the Son of God 
1 1 Cor. xv. 27. 2 Ibid. viii. 6. 



CHRIST 337 

and the Lord ! 1 We find both combined in the Chris- 
tological introduction to the Epistle to the Romans, 
where we have reason to believe the writer is expressing 
himself with the utmost care and deliberation : ' ' His Son, 
Jesus Christ our Lord." If we inquire in what sense 
the former of the two titles is to be understood, another 
phrase occurring in the same place might lead us to 
conclude that the sonship of Jesus is ethical in its 
nature. The apostle represents Christ as from or after 
the resurrection declared or constituted the Son of God 
in power, according to the Spirit of holiness, as if to 
suggest that Jesus was always worthy to be called the 
Son of God because of the measure in which the Holy 
Spirit of God dwelt in Him, and that His claim to the 
title became doubly manifest after the resurrection, 
whereby God set His seal upon Him as the Holy One, 
and made such doubts about His character as had existed 
previous to His death for ever impossible. And un- 
questionably this is at least one most important element 
in St. Paul's conception of Christ's sonship: sonship 
based on community of spirit. It is a sonship of this 
nature he has in view when further on in the same 
Epistle he represents Christ, God's Son, as a type to 
which the objects of God's electing love are to be 
conformed, and as occupying among those who have 
been assimilated to the type the position of first-born 
among many brethren, that is a position of pre-eminence 
on a basis of generic identity. 2 Yet that there was 
something unique in Christ's sonship, as St. Paul con- 
ceived it, we might infer from the expression, "His own 
1 Vide Chap. I. 2 Horn. viii. 29. 



338 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

Son" occurring at the beginning of the same section of 
the Epistle in which the brotherhood of sons is spoken 
of; 1 "His own Son," not merely the first begotten in a 
large family, but the only begotten in some sense. And 
this aspect of solitariness or uniqueness is even more 
strongly suggested in the text in 1 Thessalonians, in 
which Christians are described as waiting for God's Son 
from heaven. 2 There is indeed no eavrov there to lend 
emphasis to the title. The emphasis comes from the 
juxtaposition of the title with words in which conversion 
to Christianity is made to consist in turning to the true 
God from idols. 3 How significant the application to 
Jesus, in such a connection, of the title Son of God! 
Finally we may note, as pointing in the same direction, 
the statement in 2 Corinthians iv. 4, that Christ is the 
image of God, 4 taken along with that in Romans viii. 29, 
that the destiny of believers is to be conformed to the 
image of God's Son. The ideal for Christians is to bear 
the image of Christ; for Christ Himself is reserved the 
distinction of being the image of God. We are but the 
reflection of that in Him which is the direct radiance of 
God's glory (^airavyaa^a rrjs 8o^?), the copy of that 
which constitutes Him the express image of God's 
essence (yapaKTr\p tt)? virocrrda-ew^). 

In an important passage in 1 Corinthians viii. the 
title Lord gains equal significance to that which Son 
bears in 1 Thessalonians i. 10, from its position in a 
similar context. In some cases, as already hinted, the 
title might be regarded as the generous ascription of 

1 Bom. viii. 3. 2 1 Thess. i. 9. 

3 Ibid. i. 10. 4 os ear lp hKkv rod Qeov. 



CHRIST 339 

religious honour to Christ as Redeemer, proceeding from 
a heart too warm to be exact in its use of language. 
But in 1 Corinthians viii. St. Paul is thinking as well as 
feeling, and he is thinking on a difficult and delicate 
problem, viz. , the place to be assigned to Christ in view 
of Pagan polytheism. In that connection he makes this 
statement: "For though there be that are called gods, 
whether in heaven or in earth; as there are gods many 
and lords many, yet to us there is one God, the Father, 
of whom are all things, and we unto Him; and one Lord 
Jesus Christ through whom or for whom are all things, 
and we through Him." 1 The apostle here sets one real 
0eo? over against the many Oeol Xeyo/aevot of Paganism, 
and one real lord over against its fcvpioc 7ro\\oL And 
one cannot fail to feel that the title Lord ascribed to Jesus 
in such a connection is charged with great significance. 
It seems as if the apostle meant thereby to introduce 
Christ into the sphere of the truly divine, urged on 
thereto by the imperious exigencies of his religious 
faith, and against his prejudices as a Jew in favour of 
a strict abstract monotheism inherited from his fore- 
fathers. And the title Father attached to the name of 
God seems to suggest that He finds room for Christ 
within the divine, under the title Son. 

From what we have now ascertained as to St. Paul's 
way of thinking concerning Christ it might seem to follow 
that he would have no hesitation in calling Christ God. 
Has he then done this in any of his Epistles, more 
especially in those which are most certainly authentic ? 
There is one passage in the Epistle to the Romans which, 
1 1 Cor. viii. 5 and 6. 



340 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

in the judgment of many, supplies a clear instance of 
the ascription to Christ of the title ®eo?. It is the well- 
known text, Romans ix. 5: wv oi irarepe^; Kal ef c5i> o 
XpicTos to Kara adpica, 6 wv eVl irdvrwv ©eo? evXoyr/Tos 
efe tovs alcovas. 'A/juijv. The construction of this sen- 
tence which most readily suggests itself, at least to 
minds familiar with the doctrine of Christ's divinity, is 
that which places a comma after crdpica, and takes the 
following clause as a declaration concerning Christ that 
He is God over all, blessed for ever. Another arrange- 
ment and interpretation, however, are possible, viz., to 
put a full stop after o-dp?ca, and to regard the last clause 
as a doxology, or ascription of praise to God the supreme 
Ruler: May God who is over all be blessed for ever. 
Thus read, the text contains no ascription of dehry to 
Christ. Here, it may be observed in passing, we have an 
instance showing how much may depend on punctuation, 
and what a serious defect from the point of view of 
a mechanical theory of inspiration is the absence of 
punctuation from the autograph text. In connection 
with so important a subject as the Person of Christ it 
would certainly have been a great advantage to have 
had from the apostle's own hands a carefully punctuated 
text. Had this existed, and had it been found to contain 
a sign of the value of a comma after crdptca it would have 
left little room for doubt that St. Paul meant to speak of 
Christ as God over all. As the case stands we are left 
to determine the question whether this was indeed his 
intention by other considerations, and at most we can 
arrive only at a probable conclusion on either side of the 
question. As was to be expected the passage has given 



CHRIST 341 

rise to an immense amount of discussion, in which, of 
course, exegesis has been to a considerable extent 
influenced by dogmatic bias. Into the history of the 
interpretation I cannot here enter; I cannot even 
attempt to state in detail the grounds on which the 
decision of the point at issue turns. Let it suffice to 
state that among the considerations which have been 
urged in support of the view that the claim refers to 
Christ are these : that whenever an ascription of blessing 
to God occurs in the Hebrew or Greek Scriptures €v\o- 
yrjrbs precedes ®eo?, that if the clause in question were 
a doxology referring to God as distinct from Christ the 
(ov would be superfluous, and that such a doxology 
coming in where the clause stands would be frigid and 
senseless. These and other arguments, however, have 
not been deemed unanswerable; and, on the whole, in 
spite of personal predilection, one is constrained, after 
perusal of learned monographs, to admit that the bear- 
ing of this famous text on the deity of Christ is by no 
means so certain as at one time he may have been dis- 
posed to think. 1 

1 Amongst the most thorough discussions of the passage may be 
mentioned the article on the Construction of Romans ix. 5, by Prof. 
Ezra Abbott in the Journal of the Society of Biblical Literature and 
Exegesis, 1882, which gives a very full account of the literature of 
the topic. Prof. Abbott distinguishes no fewer than seven different 
ways in which the text may be and has been punctuated and 
interpreted. Among the orthodox theologians who have pronounced 
against the reference to Christ may be named Dr. Agar Beet. Vide 
his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, p. 271. Weizsacker, 
Das Apostolische Zeitalter, p. 580, refers to Romans i. 25, 2 Corin- 
thians xi. 31, as instances of interjectional doxologies interrupting the 
train of thought similar to the one in Romans ix. 5, assuming that the 
reference is to God. 



342 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

One other text of great importance in its bearing on 
Christ's relation to God may here be noticed. It is the 
benediction at the close of the Second Epistle to the 
Corinthians: f H yapis rod icvpiov 'It^ctoO, koI rj aydirt) 
rod ©eoO, Kal rj koivwvicl tov ayiov 7rvev{iaT0<;, fiera 
irdvT(ov. We have here a Trinity, not, however, to be 
forthwith identified with that of the formula framed by 
the Council of Nice. The apostolic benediction does not 
run as a dogmatic theologian, having in view the interests 
of Trinitarianism, might desire. Dogmatic bias would 
suggest at least two changes: the transposition of the 
first two clauses, and the addition of the word Trarpos 
after ©eoO, lest the use of the latter term absolutely 
should seem to imply that Christ while Lord was not 
God. Yet, notwithstanding these peculiarities — defects 
they might be called from the dogmatic point of view — 
this benediction of St. Paul implies surely a very high 
conception of Christ's person and position. One would 
say that he could hardly have used such a collocation of 
phrases as the grace of the Lord Jesus, the love of God, 
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, unless Christ had 
been for him a divine being — God. All the three Beings 
named in the sentence must possess in common divine 
nature. The second and third certainly do. It has been 
questioned whether for St. Paul the Holy Spirit was a 
divine Person, or merely a divine Poiver, but he was 
certainly either the one or the other. The Holy Spirit, 
if not a distinct Person in the Godhead, was at least 
God's — God's energy, therefore practically a synonym 
for God. What, then, are we to think but that the Lord 
Jesus, being named together with God and the energy 



CHRIST 343 

of God as a source of blessing, is also God, and that 
all the three august Beings here spoken of are bound 
together by the tie of a common divine nature ? 

While this appears to be the just interpretation of 
the apostolic benediction, it must be owned that in the 
Pauline Epistles a certain position of subordination 
seems to be assigned to Christ in relation to God. The 
most outstanding text in this connection is that in 
1 Cor. xv. 28, where the winding up of the drama of 
redemption is made to consist in the resignation by the 
Son of God of His mediatorial power into the hands of 
His Father, that God may be all in all. This is one of 
those grand comprehensive statements with which the 
apostle is wont to conclude important trains of thought. 
Like all other statements of the same type, it rises to 
the oratorical sublime ; but while inspiring awe it leaves 
us in doubt. The spoken Avord makes us feel how 
much is unspoken. We are taken in spirit to the 
outermost circle of revelation, whence we descry all 
around an infinite extent of darkness. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 

The title of this chapter is somewhat vague, but what 
I have in view is to consider such questions as these : 
How does the apostle conceive the Christian life, in 
reference to its beginning ? How far does he recognise 
the idea of growth as applicable to that life ? What 
features of that life occupied the place of prominence 
in his mind? 

1. The leading Pauline Epistles contain various forms 
of representation, bearing on the first of these questions. 
One of the most important and striking occurs in the 
earliest of the four. I refer to the statement in G-alatians 
vi. 15 : " Neither circumcision is anything, nor uncir- 
cumcision, but a new creation" (/caivr) ktl(tis~). A certain 
controversial colouring is discernible here. The supreme 
importance of the new spiritual creation is asserted 
against those who set value on rites. As against these, 
St. Paul says in effect : The one thing needful is the new 
creation ; without a share in it the rite of circumcision 
will do you no good, and if you possess it the want of 
circumcision will do you no harm. It is easy to see that 
the antithesis gives much sharpness and point to the 
thought expressed by the phrase /caivr) ktlctis. The 

344 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 345 

apostle conceives of Christianity as a new world ushered 
into being by the divine fiat, and taking the place of an 
old world worn out and doomed to dissolution. To his 
opponents he says in effect : God has created a new 
world in Christ which is entitled to assert to the full its 
right of existence. Speak to me no more of circumcision 
and uncircumcision, Jew and Gentile ; these distinctions 
belong to the old world which, by the very advent of the 
new, has received notice to pass away. Thus viewed the 
new creation refers not so much, at least directly, to the 
religious life of the individual Christian, as to the whole 
comprehensive social phenomenon denoted by the term 
Christianity. But there is little room for doubt that the 
individual reference was also present to the apostle's mind. 
For the very antithesis between the new creation and 
ritual implies that the former is ethical. The new crea- 
tion is a moral creation, and it is such for the Church col- 
lectively, because it is such for each member of the Church. 
It consists of a community of men who have become 
partakers of a new life through faith in Christ, and it is 
because it is so constituted that the tcaivr) ktigis is the 
marvellous thing it is represented to be. According^ 
we find that, immediately after mentioning this new 
creation, St. Paul goes on to speak of individual mem- 
bers of the Christian commonwealth in these terms: " As 
many as walk by this rule, peace be upon them and 
mercy, even upon the Israel of God." The members of 
the mystic Israel are thus represented as persons who 
walk by the rule, or have for their watchword — circum- 
cision nothing, uncircumcision nothing, the new creation 
everything ; and the adoption of this motto is possible 



346 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

only for those who are conscious of a new spiritual life 
within them. 

It is not surprising, therefore, to find the apostle in a 
later Epistle expressly stating what in the earlier he 
rather hints than says, viz., that every man who believes 
in Christ is a new creation. The important text con- 
taining the statement is 2 Cor. v. 17 : " Wherefore if 
any one in Christ, a new creation ; the old things passed 
away, behold new things have come into being." The 
sentence is characterised by laconic energy, and reveals 
intense conviction. It is an echo of the prophetic 
oracle : " Remember ye not the former things, neither 
consider the things of old. Behold I do new things," 1 
and is directed against the Judaists who were enamoured 
of the old. For the apostle Christianity is the new 
thing spoken of by the prophet, and he claims for it as 
only what is due to its importance that in its interest 
all old things, not excepting even Christ after the flesh, 
shall be forgotten, as they are by him for his part. But 
there is much more in his mind than this controversial 
meaning. When he speaks of a icaivr) tricris, he has in 
view a marvellous moral phenomenon that has made its 
appearance in every man who has truly believed in 
Christ. A great transformation has taken place. The 
believer has become in thought, feeling, aim, a new man ; 
old characteristics have disappeared, and new ones have 
taken their place. If we inquire what the old things 
vanishing, and the new things replacing the old are, the 
context helps us to an answer. We find a very signifi- 
cant hint in these words of v. 15 : " He died for all, 
1 Isa. xliii. 18, 19. 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 347 

that the living might no longer live to themselves, but 
to Him who for them died and rose again." The /in /cere 
implies that those who believe did formerly live for 
themselves, and the change that has come over them 
consists in their resolving to do so no longer. The new 
creation then, for one thing, signifies selfishness giving 
place to self-sacrifice for Christ's sake. 

Passing from the Epistle to the Corinthians to the 
Epistle to the Romans, we find the idea of a new creation 
recurring under slightly altered forms of expression. In 
the sixth chapter the apostle speaks of an old man 
(iraXaios avOpunros), implying, of course, a new ; and he 
represents Christians as called to walk in newness of life. 1 
The same chapter gives us additional information as to 
what the newness consists in. In the sequel Christians 
are exhorted thus : " Let not sin therefore reign in your 
mortal body that ye should obey its desires." 2 The new 
man, that is, is one who is free, or at least strives to 
assert his freedom from the dominion of fleshly desire, 
and who seeks to make all his members instruments of 
righteousness. At the commencement of chapter xii., 
where begins the hortatory part of the Epistle, the same 
truth is suggested by the exhortation to Christians to 
present their bodies a living sacrifice characterised as a 
rational service (Xoyucr) Xarpeia), in tacit contrast to the 
ritual service of the Levitical system under which brute 
beasts were offered in sacrifice. The exhortation is 
virtually a summons to mortify the lusts of the flesh, so 
that the life in the body may be pure and holy. And 
he is a new man who so puts to death unholy desire and 
1 Bom. vi. 4-6. 2 jf jidt Yi. 12. 



348 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

lives a temperate life. The same exhortation recurs in 
Romans xiii., accompanied with some details as to the 
things to be shunned. 1 Here the doctrine of the new 
life is stated in altered terms, being represented as a 
putting on of Christ Jesus, Christ being conceived as a 
new garment to be worn by the Christian in place of an 
old one. The figure suits a connection of thought in 
which believers are exhorted to a change of bodily 
habits; for habits are a garment of the soul. It also 
supplies us with a link of thought wherewith to connect 
the two characteristics of the new creation which have 
come under our notice — self-sacrifice and self-control 
in reference to personal habits QytcpaTeia)? That link 
is Christ. Christ by His redeeming love supplies the 
motive to self-sacrifice ; by the same love, and by the 
purity of His life, He furnishes the motive to temperance. 
It is true that, in exhorting to put on Christ, the apostle 
makes no express allusion either to Christ's love or to 
His holiness. But the exhortation plainly implies that 
Christ is the model. To put on Christ is to have 
Christ's habits, to be Christlike. It further implies that 
Christ is a power within which generates a new moral 
habit ; and if it be asked, Whence has He this power ? 
the answer may be found in another place, where 
the apostle says : " Ye are not your own, for ye are 
bought with a price ; therefore glorify God in your 
body." 3 The implied truth is that temperance, Christian 

1 Bom. xiii. 13. 2 Gal. v. 23. 

3 1 Cor. vi. 20. Note the 5 77 after 5o£a<rare. It implies that to 
glorify God in the body is the self-evident duty arising out of the 
consciousness of redemption. 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 349 

sobriety and purity, not less than self-sacrifice, naturally 
spring out of the sense of redemption. They are a debt 
of honour we owe to Christ, the Saviour of men. 

Comparing the teaching of St. Paul with that of our 
Lord on the present topic, we find in both the doctrine 
that the Christian life begins with a decisive change, but 
expressed in different terms. In the Synoptical Gospels, 
Jesus speaks of repentance and conversion, and in the 
Fourth Gospel the change of mind denoted b}^ the words, 
fAerdvoia, eTuo-rpofyr], is figuratively described as a new 
birth. The apostle's name for the same experience is, 
as we have seen, a new creation. The name is well 
chosen to convey an idea of the greatness of the change, 
and on that account it commended itself to the mind of 
one whose experience amounted to nothing short of a 
mighty religious revolution. The phrase is the reflection 
of a momentous spiritual history. It was further wel- 
come to the apostle as applicable not only to individual 
experience, but to the collective body of phenomena 
which owed their existence to the gospel. Conscious of 
a new creation in himself, he also saw a new creation all 
around him, and he applied to it a title which was at 
once a claim and an argument for the recognition of a 
great and startling novelty. Finally, we cannot doubt 
that another recommendation of this name to him was 
the implied ascription of the revolution it denoted, 
whether in the individual or in the community, to God 
as its author. It was meant to suggest that He who at 
the beginning made the heavens and the earth had in the 
end of the world uttered the fiat : " Let the new heavens 
and the new earth be." An express recognition of the 



350 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

creative casuality of God, in the apostle's own experience, 
occurs in the remarkable words of 2 Cor. iv. 6 : "It was 
the God who said, ' out of darkness let light shine,' who 
shined in our hearts, giving the illumination consisting 
in the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of 
Christ." 

It is obvious that while well-fitted to express the 
phenomenal aspect of the new life, as presenting to dis- 
cerning eyes a great startling change, the figure of the 
new creation, much less aptly than the figure of the new 
birth, expresses the nature of that life and its relation to 
what went before. The latter figure conveys the thought 
that the new life is not a creation out of nothing, having 
no relation to antecedent conditions, but rather a manifes- 
tation in power of what was there before in germ, the 
divine element in human nature made dominant. This 
relation, so far from being suggested, might rather seem 
to be negatived by the Pauline phrase. The apostle, 
however, did not mean to deny the existence of a divine 
element in what theologians call the "natural" man. 
On the contrary, he expressly recognises it in Rom. vii. 
under the name, the law of the mind. 

2. We pass now to the second topic, viz., how far the 
idea of growth is recognised in the Pauline literature in 
connection with the Christian life. In the synoptical 
representation of Christ's teaching, the idea of growth in 
the kingdom of God is very strikingly and adequately 
stated in the parable of the blade, the green ear, and the 
ripe corn. 1 The thought therein suggested is that in the 
kingdom of God, as in the natural world, life is subject 
1 Mark iv. 26-29. 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 351 

to the law of gradual development, proceeding towards 
the ultimate state of maturity by regular well-defined 
stages, which must be gone through successively. It 
must be admitted, perhaps not without a feeling of dis- 
appointment, that we search in vain for a similarly clear 
conception in the Pauline Epistles. In none of these, 
not even in the later Christological Epistles, can we 
discover any such distinct and significant recognition of 
a law of growth ; and if we confine our attention to the 
four leading Epistles, we can find no sufficient ground for 
the assertion that St. Paul represents the Christian life 
as an organic process of growth. On the other hand, it 
would be going too far to say that, in the Pauline mode 
of conceiving the matter, the Christian life springs into 
existence complete from the first, undergoing no subse- 
quent change, and needing none because fully answering 
to the ideal. 1 This view might indeed be held compati- 
bly with the admission that there are texts which suggest 
another mode of regarding the matter. The theory of 
a new life, complete from the first, is not justified by 
experience ; it was not justified by St. Paul's experience 
any more than by ours. He found no perfect Christians 
in the churches to which he wrote letters, very much 
the reverse. Hence the frequent occurrence of texts 
containing exhortations, encouragements, reproaches, 
threatenings, suggesting the idea that the new life is at 
first a rudimentary imperfect thing requiring improve- 

1 So Reuss in his Theology of the Apostolic Age. Pfleiderer takes 
the opposite view, at least in the first edition of Paulinismus. I 
have not noticed any modification of his opinion in the second 
edition. 



352 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

ment, a tendency rather than an attainment, a struggle 
rather than a victory achieved. Notwithstanding such 
passages, however, it has been maintained that the no- 
tion of a new life complete from the first is involved in 
some Pauline utterances, and a protest has been taken 
against attempts at harmonising the two sets of texts by 
the construction of a dogma of gradual sanctification, 
according to which regeneration should be merely the 
point of departure for the new life, to be followed by a 
progressive amelioration, an increasing power over the 
flesh. The Pauline ideal, it is contended, is a new life 
in Christ, perfect from the first, a death to sin and a 
resurrection to holiness, accomplished not gradually but 
per saltum. If the reality fall short, the ideal is not to 
be sacrificed or lowered ; the reality is rather to be re- 
garded as a fault to be corrected, the ideal being kept 
constantly before the eye in its uncompromising grandeur 
and unearthly beauty as a stimulus to the task of self- 
correction. 1 

The one thing I seriously object to in this represen- 
tation is the assumption that St. Paul regarded the 
Christian ideal as realisable at the outset. That he 
might invest the beginning of the Christian life with an 
ideal significance, representing it as a death to sin and a 
resurrection to a new life (ideas both excluding lapse of 
time) is very conceivable ; that he did this in fact I 
believe. But that it was a surprise to him that no- 
where did he find young Christians in whom the ideal 
significance of faith was fully realised, is not so easy to 

1 Vide Reuss 1 whole chapter on Regeneration in his account of the 
Pauline theology, Theologie Chreteinne, vol. ii. p. 135. 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 353 

believe. It might have been a surprise to him when he 
was himself a young Christian, as it is apt to be to all 
beginners. For in the blossom of the new life, Christians 
feel as if their spiritual being were already complete, 
and the advent of the green fruit is a surprise and a 
disappointment to them, and hence it is commonly con- 
strued wrongly as a lapse or declension. But twenty 
years' experience must surely have helped to correct 
such crude ideas, and taught the apostle to cherish 
moderate sober expectations in reference to beginners, 
and to recognise, if not with full understanding of its 
rationale, at least virtually, that the divine life is not 
a momentary product, but a process, a problem to be 
worked out, an organic growth. 

Such a conception accordingly we do find, though 
mainly in the later Epistles. The exhortation, " Work 
out your salvation," suggests the idea of a problem to be 
solved. 1 The comparison of the Church to the human 
body, growing up to the stature of manhood, suggests 
the idea of organic growth. 2 The metaphorical expres- 
sion, " rooted in love," 3 suggests a comparison of the 
Christian life to a tree planted in a good soil, and grow- 
ing from a small plant to the dimensions of a forest tree. 

Rudimentary hints of a doctrine of growth are not 
Avanting even in the four leading Epistles. The idea of 
growth is clearly recognised in regard to humanity at 
large, if not in reference to the individual, in the com- 
parison of the law to tutors and governors who have 
charge of an heir during the time of his minority. 4 The 

1 Phil. ii. 12. 2 Epht iv> n _ 15> 

3 Ibid. iii. 18. * Gal. iv. 1, 2. 

2 A 



354 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

word KapTros, in the text where the apostle sets the fruit 
of the Spirit over against the tvorks of the flesh, 1 readily 
suggests to us the idea of gradual growth, knowing as 
we do that ripe fruit is the slow product of time. Yet 
it is doubtful if this thought was present to the apostle's 
mind. Equally doubtful is it whether we are entitled to 
lay stress on the word " soweth " in the text: " He that 
soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life ever- 
lasting," 2 as it is probable that the whole earthly life is 
here regarded as the seed time, the harvest falling in 
the life hereafter. The surest indication of a doctrine 
of growth in grace to be found in the Epistle to the 
Galatians is contained in chap. v. 5, where the Christian 
is represented as waiting for the hope of righteousness. 
Assuming that the righteousness referred to is to be 
taken subjectively, we find in this text the idea that 
personal holiness is an object of hope and patient expec- 
tation. The ideal is thus projected into the future, and 
we are by implication taught not to fret because it is 
not at once realised. We are to wait for the realisation 
of the ideal in a mature spiritual manhood, with the 
patience of a farmer waiting for the harvest, who knows 
that growth is gradual, there being first the blade, then 
the green ear, and only then the full corn in the ear. 

Among the hints of a doctrine of growth in the other 
Epistles belonging to the main group may be mentioned 
the following : — 

In 1 Corinthians the apostle describes the members of 
the Church as vrjiriot to whom he could give only milk, 3 
while he claims to be in possession of a wisdom which 
i Gal. v. 22. 2 Ibid. vi. 8. 3 1 Cor. iii. 2. 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 355 

he could teach to the more advanced, denominated reXeioi. 1 
But as showing that the full significance of the doctrine 
was not present to his mind, it has to be noted that he 
speaks of the infantile state of the Corinthian Church 
as something blameworthy, associating with the epithet 
',' babes " the attributes of unspirituality and carnality. 2 
The tone here is markedly different from that of the 
words put into the mouth of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel : 
" I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot 
bear them now," 3 which tacitly recognise that spiritual 
children cannot be expected to have the understanding of 
spiritual men. It resembles rather the tone of the writer 
of the Epistle to the Hebrews when he complains of his 
readers as being destitute of manly intelligence, and like 
children having need of milk. Only there was this 
difference between the Corinthian and the Hebrew Chris- 
tians, that the latter were in their second childhood, and 
they had become as children, while the Corinthians were 
in their first childhood, and had only recently become 
converts to Christianity. Blame in the case of second 
childhood, spiritual dotage, was certainly called for, but 
ought not much allowance to be made for beginners ? 

In 2 Corinthians iii. 18, the apostle represents Chris- 
tians as undergoing transformation through contempla- 
tion of the glory of the Lord Christ. " We are being 
changed into the same image from glory to glory." The 
present tense suggests a process continually going on. 
The expression " from glory to glory " may also point 
to a steady gradual advance, though it may mean from 
glory in Him to glory in us. 

1 1 Cor. ii. 6. 2 Ioidt m 1# 3 j ohn xv i 12. 



356 st. paul's conception of cheistianity 

In Romans vi. 14, the apostle remarks : " Sin shall not 
reign over you, for ye are not under law, but under 
grace." This statement does not teach a doctrine of 
gradual sanctification, but it leaves room for it. Sin 
dethroned may still attempt to regain its lost sovereignty, 
and we know that when a change of dynasty takes place 
in a country there is generally a more or less protracted 
period of trouble, during which members of the degraded 
royal family endeavour to get themselves restored to 
power. Sin dethroned, therefore, may continue to give 
trouble as a pretender. In the 12th chapter of the 
same Epistle occurs this exhortation : " Be ye not con- 
formed to this world, but be ye transformed in the 
renewal of the mind, to the effect of your proving 
what is the will of God, the good, and acceptable, 
and perfect." This transformation of character and 
this proving of the divine will, so as to verify its 
characteristics, imply a gradual process, lapse of time, 
a thing done bit by bit, a progressive experience 
enlightening the mind in the knowledge of God's 
will, and bringing our life more and more into con- 
formity with it. A process of growth is equally 
implied in the text, chap. v. 3 : " We glory in tribula- 
tion, knowing that tribulation worketh out patience, 
and patience attestation, and attestation hope." The 
working out of patience is a process involving time, and, 
what is still more to our present purpose, the result of 
the process, patience, and the consciousness of being 
tested and attested, whence come self-reliance and calm 
assurance, is something we could not possess antecedent 
to experience. That is to say, these are Christian virtues 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 357 

developed by the discipline of trial which no beginner 
can possess. 

The result of our inquiry, on the whole, is this. In the 
Pauline letters, and especially the controversial group, 
there is no formulated doctrine of growth enunciated 
with full consciousness and deliberate didactic purpose. 
But there is a doctrine of growth latent in these letters ; 
there are germs which we may use in the construction of 
such a doctrine. Moreover, there are facts in the life of 
the churches alluded to in these letters which we may 
employ in verification of the doctrine, though not so used 
by the apostle himself. For example, there is the lapse of 
the Galatian Church into legalism, and of the Corinthian 
Church into various sorts of errors in opinion, and the 
contentions prevailing therein, and there is the scrupu- 
losity about meats and drinks spoken of in the Epistle to 
the Romans. We may use the phenomena as helping us to 
form a vivid idea of the characteristics of the green ear, 
or let us call it the stage of the crude fruit in the divine 
life, between the blossom and the ripe fruit. St. Paul 
dealt with them as faults. But are they not more than 
faults accidentally occurring; are they not phenomena 
which reappear regularly with all the certainty of a fixed 
law? As sure as after the blossom comes the green 
crude fruit, come there not in the experiences of Chris- 
tians, after the time of first enthusiasm is past, such 
features as these : joylessness, a religion of legal temper 
and mechanical routine, scrupulosity, opinionativeness, 
censoriousness, quarrelsomeness, doubt? Then, on the 
other hand, what is that spirit of adoption whose presence 
and influence within the Churches to which he writes the 



358 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

apostle misses and so greatly desiderates but one of the 
most outstanding characteristics of Christian maturity, of 
the stage of the ripe fruit in Christian growth, when a 
believing man at last begins to have some conception of 
the true character of the new life and some practical 
acquaintance with its blessedness ? The advent of that 
spirit St. Paul viewed as the sign that the world at large, 
humanity, had arrived at its majority, and it is an equally 
sure sign of the arrival of the same important epoch in 
the spiritual life of the individual. Thus might we find 
valuable material for the construction of a doctrine of 
gradual sanctification, advancing through well-marked 
stages, not merely or even chiefly in the didactic state- 
ments of the apostle, but very specially in his complaints 
against and exhortations to the Churches to which he 
addressed his Epistles. 

3. The last point we proposed to consider refers to 
the salient features of the Christian character, as con- 
ceived by St. Paul. Two of these, sobriety and devotion 
to Christ, have already been mentioned as among the 
moral phenomena of the new creation. To these has 
now to be added charity, a^airr], which makes the list of 
the cardinal virtues in the Pauline ethical system toler- 
ably complete. It might seem due to the prominence 
given to it in the First Epistle to the Corinthians that 
a fourth should be added to the number, viz., spiritual 
knowledge or insight. The apostle there claims for the 
pneumatical man, as against the psychical, knowledge and 
appreciation of the things of the Spirit of God. 1 Such 
knowledge he evidently regarded as an outstanding mark 
1 1 Cor. ii. 14, 15. 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 359 

of distinction between the two classes of men, one of the 
prominent phenomena of the new creation. The man of 
the new creation knows the mind of God ; the man who 
is outside this creation is not able to know. The psychical 
man has the five senses of the soul, but not the sixth 
sense of the Spirit. Of this St. Paul was doubtless 
strongly convinced. Yet it would be contrary to the 
whole spirit of his teaching to mention anything of the 
nature of gnosis, even though it be spiritual gnosis, 
alongside of charity, as if of co-ordinate importance. 
In the same Epistle further on he expressly represents 
knowledge as of no account in comparison with charity. 
" If I know all mysteries and all knowledge and have not 
charity I am nothing." 1 In another place he remarks : 
" Knowledge inflates, charity edifies." 2 The knowledge 
thus depreciated relates to divine things, but that does 
not prevent the apostle from assigning to it a place of 
secondary importance. Gnosis, theological gnosis espe- 
cially, is very good in its own place, but it tends to make 
a man think more highly of himself than he ought. No 
fear of that in the case of love ; it builds up a solid 
structure of real, not imaginary Christian worth. 

Very significant of the sovereign place which aydirr) 
occupied in St. Paul's esteem is the fact that in his 
enumeration of the fruit of the Spirit he names it first, 3 
not without a controversial reference to the religious 
contentions which vexed the Churches of Galatia. Yet 
charity, in the sense of love to the brethren, is not the 
absolute first for him. Devotion to Christ takes pre- 
cedence. Witness the stern word : " If any one love not 
1 1 Cor. xiii. 2. 2 Ibid. viii. 1. 3 Gal v. 22. 



360 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

the Lord, let him be anathema." St. Paul's charity is 
great; he loves weak brethren, and out of regard to 
their scruples denies himself the use of his Christian 
liberty. 1 He loves even those in the churches who 
regard him with distrust as a dangerous revolutionary, 
setting aside the divine law, changing venerable customs, 
as is shown by his diligence in making collections for 
the poor disciples in Jerusalem, though fully aware what 
hard thoughts they cherish regarding him there. His 
charity rises superior to party divisions, and embraces 
all who belong to the Israel of God, strong or weak, 
Jew or Gentile, friendly or hostile to himself. He loves, 
moreover, all without, and yearns to do them good as he 
has opportunity, especially to bring to them the good 
tidings, that they also may believe. But there is one 
class of men whom he can regard only with abhorrence : 
those who have had opportunity of knowing Jesus Christ 
in His goodness, wisdom, and grace, yet love Him not, but 
think and speak evil of Him. That for St. Paul was 
the unpardonable sin. He can love all but those who, 
knowing what they do, dislike Jesus. And in further 
proof that devotion to Jesus is the supreme virtue for 
him, it may be added that he loves all men, but these, 
for Christ's sake. He considers the scruples of the weak, 
because Christ died for them. He loves the poor in 
Jerusalem because, though they distrust him, they are 
disciples of Jesus, though very imperfectly understand- 
ing His teaching. He loves the honest-minded among 
his opponents, because they are fighting for what they 
consider to be the truth in Jesus. He loves the whole 
i 1 Cor. viii. 11, 13, 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 361 

world, because he believes all mankind have a place in 
Christ's Saviour sympathies. It is not meant by these 
statements to insinuate that St. Paul exercised charity 
by calculation, and after deliberate reflection on motives. 
His Christianity was too vigorous and healthy for that. 
I mean that Christ had so possessed his soul as to 
become the inspiration of his whole life, the latent 
source of all his impulses, the supreme end of all his 
actions. 



CHAPTER XX 

THE CHURCH 

It is natural that one should desire to know what is 
taught in the Pauline letters, and especially in the 
controversial group, on the subject of the Church, and 
in what relation the Pauline idea of the Church stands 
to the idea of the kingdom of God, so prominent in 
the teaching of Christ as reported in the Synoptical 
Gospels. 

As to the latter topic, for we may begin with it, it is 
to be noted that both ideas — Church and Kingdom, and 
the terms corresponding, occur both in Synoptic Gospels 
and in Pauline Epistles, but in an inverse order of 
prominence. The Kingdom is the leading idea in our 
Lord's teaching; the Church is named only twice in the 
evangelic narratives, and the question has been discussed 
whether Jesus . ever used the word at all, or even con- 
templated the thing. The Church, on the other hand, 
is the leading category in St. Paul's Epistles; the 
kingdom of God is mentioned only five times in the 
four great Epistles, while the terms "Church" and 
" Churches " occur many times. From these facts the 
natural inference might seem to be that in the view 
both of Jesus and of Paul, the Kingdom and the Church 

362 



THE CHUHCIi 863 

were practically equivalent, the Church being the ideal 
of the Kingdom realised; from Christ's point of view 
the ideal to be realised in the future, therefore rarely 
mentioned, from.St. Paul's point of view the ideal already 
realised, therefore most frequently spoken of. Broadly 
viewed this is the truth. Yet the statement must be 
taken with qualification, for neither in the teaching of 
our Lord, nor in that of St. Paul, do the two concep- 
tions exactly cover each other. For both the Kingdom 
possesses a certain transcendental character not belong- 
ing to the Church. This amounts to saying that it is a 
pure ideal hovering over the reality, or in advance of it, a 
goal which the Church seeks to approximate but never 
overtakes. Along with this transcendental character goes 
an apocalyptic aspect, revealing itself in evangelic and 
Pauline representations of the Kingdom. These two 
attributes of transcendency and futurity are very rec- 
ognisable in the passages referring to the Kingdom in 
the Pauline letters. The eschatological aspect is appar- 
ent in the texts, G-alatians v. 21; 1 Corinthians vi. 
9, 10; 1 Corinthians xv. 50, in the two former of which 
it is declared, concerning men guilty of certain specified 
sins, that they shall not inherit the Kingdom, while in 
the latter the same declaration is made concerning flesh 
and blood — that is, our present mortal corruptible bodies. 
The transcendent character of the Kingdom is plainly 
implied in the remaining two texts in which it is men- 
tioned, 1 Corinthians iv. 20 and Romans xiv. 17. 
4 'Not in word," says the apostle in the former place (is) 
" the kingdom of God, but in power." It is clear that 
for the writer of such a sentence, at the moment, the 



864 st. paul's conception of Christianity" 

Kingdom is not identical with the Church, but some- 
thing rising far above it in ideal purity and beauty and 
dignity. For the statement quoted could not have 
been made concerning the Church as represented by the 
Christian community in Corinth. The very opposite was 
the truth as regarded it. The Church at Corinth was in 
word not in power. It was a society wholly given up to 
talk, to oratory, to prophesying, to speaking with tongues. 
The one phenomenon visible there was a universally 
diffused talent for speech; there was a sad dearth of all 
that tends to give a religious community spiritual power, 
of wisdom and charity, or even common morality. A 
state of things like that would compel one to distinguish 
between Church and Kingdom, and to think of the latter 
as exalted above the former as far as heaven is above 
the earth. Similar observations apply to the other text 
which runs : ' i The kingdom of God is not meat and 
drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy 
Spirit. ' ' The obvious meaning is that in the Kingdom 
ritual cleanness and uncleanness are of no account, 
nothing is of value there that is merely ceremonial, 
nothing but the moral and spiritual; the qualification 
for citizenship is not eating or abstaining from eating a 
given sort of food, but possessing a righteous, loving, 
sunny spirit. The men to whom belongs the Kingdom 
are those who have a passion for righteousness, who are 
peacemakers, and who can rejoice even in tribulation, 
because they have chosen God for their summum honum. 
The very fact that the apostle thought it needful to 
make the observation just commented on proves that the 
Church of Home was far enough from realising the idea 



THE CHURCH 865 

of a community in which questions about meats and 
drinks were nothing, and righteousness, peace, and joy 
in the Spirit everything. There were in it, on the one 
hand, many whose consciences were enslaved by petty 
scruples, and, on the other, many who treated such 
scruples with contempt ; consequently, there prevailed a 
great forgetfulness in opposite directions of the great 
things of the law — justice, mercy, and faith. Such 
a state of matters is a disappointing and depressing 
spectacle wherever exhibited, and the soul of a good 
man naturally takes to itself wings of a dove and flies 
away in quest of a refuge from despair and scepticism to 
the fair kingdom of heaven where nought but what is 
noble and benignant and bright finds entrance. It is 
well for one Avho lives in evil times to be able thus 
mentally to see the transcendent commonwealth. It is 
his salvation from unbelief, his quietive amid disgusts, 
his consolation amid disappointments and disenchant- 
ments; a temple wherein he may behold the beauty of 
the Lord, when there is nowhere else anything beautiful 
to look upon; a pavilion in which he can hide himself 
in the time of trouble. There is no other refuge than 
the Church transcendent. However disappointing any 
particular religious society may be, it is not worth while 
to leave it for any other. The Church at Corinth was 
bad, but the Church at Rome was also far from perfect. 
In the one was licentious liberty, in the other religious 
narrowness and petty scrupulosity. Therefore, a truly 
Christlike man, whose lot was cast in either, might well 
say : "I had rather bear the ills I have than fly to 
others that I know not of." St. Paul's comfort in 



S66 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

reference to both was to lift up his thoughts to the 
transcendent kingdom of God. 

It thus appears that in the mind of the apostle the 
divine Kingdom was by no means immediately identical 
with the Christian Church. Yet while this is true, it 
is at the same time also true that in his writings we 
observe a constant effort to contemplate the Church in 
the bright light of the ideal, and not merely in the dim 
disenchanting light of vulgar reality. He desired ever 
to invest the Church with the attributes of the divine 
Kingdom, and loved to think of it as a glorious Church, 
without spot of defilement, or wrinkle of age, holy, free 
from blemish as became the bride of Christ. 1 Various 
traces of this idealising tendency are discoverable in the 
leading Epistles. First we may note the generalising 
conception of the Church as a unity. Sometimes the 
apostle speaks of Churches in the plural, as in Galatians 
i. 2, where he salutes "the Churches of Galatia," and 
in i. 22, where he states that he was unknown to " the 
Churches of Judea." The Churches in these texts are 
little communities of Christians in different towns who 
associated together as believers in Jesus, and met in one 
place for divine worship. In other texts the apostle 
uses the word "Church" collectively, to denote the 
whole body of believers, as in Galatians i. 13, where 
he penitently refers to the time when he persecuted 
"the Church of God," and in 1 Corinthians x. 32, 
where he counsels the Christians in Corinth to give no 
occasion of stumbling to Jews or to Greeks, or to the 
Church of God, where it is clear from the reference to 

1 Eph. v. 27 ; the Epistle, whether one of St. Paul's or not, utters 
here genuinely Pauline sentiment. 



THE CHURCH 367 

Jews and Greeks that he has a wide public in view; 
the whole world in fact divided into three classes: the 
Jews, the Gentiles represented by the Greeks (these two 
embracing all unbelievers), and the Church embracing 
all believers. 

Another indication of the tendency to invest the 
Church with the ideal attributes of the divine Kingdom 
may be found in the representation of the Church as a 
society in which all outward distinctions are cancelled, 
and the sole qualification for membership is purely 
spiritual union to Christ by faith. The conception of 
the new humanity in which Christ is all and in all 
occurs chiefly in the later Epistles, especially in that to 
the Ephesians, but it is found also in the earlier, very 
distinctly in G-alatians iii. 27, 28. " As many of you 
as were baptized into Christ put on Christ. There is 
(in Him) neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave 
nor freeman, there is neither male nor female; for ye are 
all one in Christ Jesus." Here is sketched a spiritual 
society in which nothing is taken into account but the 
personal relation of each member to the common object 
of faith. While the attribute of spirituality is ac- 
centuated the kindred attribute of universality is plainly 
implied. There is neither Jew, Greek, bond, free, male, 
female, because all are there together. This new society 
of the apostle's, like the kingdom of Jesus, is open to 
all comers, just because it negates all distinctions, and 
insists only on the one condition of faith, possible for all 
alike. It may here be noted that the expression "the 
Israel of God " used in the close of the Epistle to the 
Galatians shows how closely the ideas of the Church and 



368 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

the Kingdom were connected in the writer's mind. The 
new creation presented to view in the Christian Church 
was for him the ideal commonwealth, whereof the theo- 
cratic kingdom of Israel was an adumbration. 

One other indication of this idealising tendency is to 
be found in the high moral attributes ascribed by St. Paul 
to the members of the Church, Though not unaware of 
the prevalent shortcoming in faith and life, he neverthe- 
less speaks of the members of the various churches as 
" saints," sanctified, holy. Even the Corinthian Chris- 
tians are saluted as ' ' sanctified in Christ Jesus, ' ' 1 and the 
title i ' saints ' ' is extended to all Christians in the province 
of Achaia. 2 This might seem to be a mere matter of 
courtesy did we not find in the body of the First Epistle 
to the Corinthians a deliberate statement to the effect 
that the members of the Church were a body of sanctified 
men, a statement rendered all the more emphatic by the 
plainness with which the apostle indicates that the Co- 
rinthians had been the reverse of holy before they became 
converts to the Christian religion. " Such were some 
of you, but ye were washed, but ye were sanctified." 3 

From the foregoing discussion we have obtained a 
sufficiently clear general idea of the Christian Church as 
conceived by St. Paul. It is a society of men united by 
a common faith in Jesus Christ as the Saviour, and a 
common devotion to Him as their Lord, gathered together 
from all classes, conditions, and races of men. It does 
not need to be said that the members of such a society 
would have very close fellowship with each other. There 
is no brotherhood so intimate and precious as one based 
1 1 Cor. i. 2. 2 2 Cor. LI. 3 1 Cor. vi. 11. 



THE CHURCH 369 

on a pure religion sincerely professed. It may be taken 
for granted that those who belong to such a brotherhood 
will avail themselves of all possible opportunities of 
meeting together for the interchange of thought and 
affection in mutual converse, and for united worship of 
the common object of faith, and for ministering to each 
other's wants and comforts. The Westminster Confes- 
sion says: " Saints by profession are bound to maintain 
an holy fellowship and communion in the worship of 
God, and in performing such other spiritual services as 
tend to their mutual edification; as also in relieving 
each other in outward things, according to their several 
abilities and necessities." 1 In the initial period of 
fresh enthusiasm Christians would do all this instinc- 
tively without needing to be told it was their duty. 

Accordingly, we are not surprised to find in the letters 
of St. Paul to the Churches he had planted traces of a 
very lively fellowship in worship, religious intercourse, 
and mutual benefit prevalent among those bearing the 
Christian name. They met together in public assembly, 
how often does not appear, but certainly at least once a 
week, and on the first day of the week; and when they 
met they prayed, sang, prophesied for mutual edification. 
They also ate together, and while doing so they set 
apart a portion of the bread and wine to be memorials of 
Christ's death, and partook of these with reverent, grate- 
ful thoughts of Him who died for them, and in token of 
mutual love to each other as His disciples. 2 At first, 

1 Chapter xxvi. sect. 2. 

2 The question has been discussed whether the celebration of the 
Lord's Supper took place at the meeting for general worship or at a 

2 B 



370 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

apparently, all members of the community took part in- 
discriminately in the religious exercises. Everyone had 
his psalm, his doctrine, his revelation, or his still more 
mysterious utterance called a tongue (<y\ coao-a), or his in- 
terpretation of a brother's tongue. All were on a level, 
there was perfect equality of privilege, unrestricted lib- 
erty of speech for the common good. It is easy to see that 
in a city like Corinth, among an excitable race like the 
Greeks, a religious meeting conducted in this manner 
would be more lively than orderly. It would not be long 
before a need for some little measure of order and organi- 
sation would be felt, a need for dividing the Church into 
two classes : those on the one hand who would best serve 
the brotherhood by silence, and those 011 the other whose 
special business it should be to contribute to the common 
benefit by speech. The question who were to be silent and 
who were to speak would settle itself by a process of natu- 
ral selection. It would be seen by degrees who could speak 
to profit and who could not, and means would be found 
for silencing the unprofitable speaker, and forgiving those 
who could speak profitably the position of recognised 
teachers. In a similar way spontaneous differentiation 
would take place in reference to other gifts, and certain 
persons would gradually come to be recognised as pos- 
sessing the charism of healing, of succouring the needy, 
of government, and so on. Recognition would follow 
experimental proof of possession of the function. The 
honour of recognition would be the reward of service 

separate meeting. Vide on this Weizsacker, Das Apostolische Zeitalter, 
pp. 546-583, where the second of these alternatives is on strong 
grounds advocated. 



THE CHURCH 371 

actually rendered. For in the primitive Church the law 
enunciated by Christ, distinction to be reached through 
service, was thoroughly understood and acted on. The 
law is clearly proclaimed in St. Paul's Epistles. He 
represents the Church as an organism like the human 
body, wherein each part has a function to perform for the 
good of the whole, and in which if one part has more 
honour than another, it is because of its serviceableness. 1 
How far the process of differentiation into distinctive- 
ness of function, and of corresponding recognition of fit- 
ness for distinct functions, had been carried at the time 
the four great Epistles were written it is not easy to 
determine. It seems pretty certain that by that time an 
order of teachers had arisen, but it is not so clear that 
all the communities were furnished with an order of 
rulers. No certain trace of such an order can be dis- 
covered in the sources of information concerning the 
Churches of Galatia and Corinth. One might indeed 
suppose that 1 Cor. xvi. 15, 16, contained a reference to 
something of the kind. "I beseech you, brethren (ye 
know the house of Stephanas, that it is the first fruits of 
Achaia, and that they gave themselves for service to the 
saints), that ye also be in subjection to such and to every 
fellow-worker and labourer." But this is too vague an 
exhortation to serve as a proof -text, especially when it is 
remembered that in connection with the case of immoral 
conduct in the Corinthian Church the apostle does not 
anywhere summon Church rulers to exercise needful dis- 
cipline, but simply appeals to the congregation to purge 
themselves of complicity with the sin. A more reliable 
1 1 Cor. xii. 12-26. 



372 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

indication of the existence of a ruling function in rudi- 
mentary form is to be found in what we have reason to 
regard as the earliest of the Pauline Epistles, the first to 
the Thessalonians. In that Epistle (v. 12) the apostle 
exhorts the Thessalonian Church to know those that 
laboured among them and were over them in the Lord 
Qrrpoio-TaiJLevovs} and admonished them. A real authority 
is doubtless here pointed at, only we are not to conceive 
of it as of an official character originating in ecclesiastical 
ordination. It arose naturally and spontaneously, prob- 
ably out of priority in faith, or from the fact that the irpol- 
o-rafAevoL held the meetings of the congregation in their 
own houses and with the expenditure of their own means. 1 
As regards teachers on the other hand, distinct allusions 
to such an order occur in the leading Epistles. The apostle 
thus exhorts the Galatians : ' ' Let him that is taught in 
the word — the catechumen — communicate with him 
that teacheth (tw Kar^ovvri) in all good things." The 
exhortation seems to imply not only the existence of 

1 Vide on this Weizsacker's Apostolic Age, p. 291. The reader may also 
consult two articles by Heinrici in the Zeitschrift fur wissenschaftliche 
Theologie, 1876, 1877, on "Die Christengemeinde Korinths und die 
religiosen Genossenschaften der Greichen," and " Zur Geschichte der 
Anfange Paulinischen Gemeinde." Heinrici's view is that the Gentile 
Churches founded by St. Paul were not modelled on the Jewish syna- 
gogue, but assumed the characteristics of the religious associations 
of the Pagan world. These, as they existed in Greece, according to 
Heinrici, bore a purely republican character. All members possessed 
the same rights, all were expected to show equal zeal. All were alike 
sovereign and alike responsible. The collective body ruled, resolved, 
rewarded, punished {Zeitschrift fur wissenschaftliche Theologie, p. 501). 
The irpoCvTafxevos mentioned in 1 Thess. v. 12 and in Bomans xii. 8, 
Heinrici compares to the Patronus of an association, who, as a 
person of influence, guarded its legal rights. 



THE CHURCH 373 

teachers, but of teachers who gave their whole time to 
the work, and therefore needed to be supported by the 
Church. In Corinth the position of teacher was occupied 
by Apollos, to whom reference is made in 1 Cor. iii. 4. 
That Apollos was more than an occasional speaker, even 
a regular instructor, is evident from the terms in which 
the apostle speaks of him. Claiming for himself the 
function of planter, he assigns to Apollos the function of 
watering, a task which, in its nature, requires to be per- 
formed systematically. In 1 Cor. iv. he describes both 
Apollos and himself as servants of Christ and stewards of 
the mysteries of God, phrases implying that both exer- 
cised functions of great importance, the one as a founder 
of Churches, moving about from land to land, the other 
as a stationary instructor in a particular church. 

But the passage which beyond all others shows that 
an importance and dignity belonged to the teaching 
ministry in St. Paul's esteem is that in 2 Corinthians 
where he describes himself as a fit servant of the New 
Testament. 1 It is implied that it is no small matter to 
be a fit minister of the Christian religion. That this is 
the thought in the apostle's mind is proved by the fact 
that, having claimed for himself to be such a minister, he 
goes on to pronounce an eulogium on the Christian dis- 
pensation in impassioned language, describing it as the 
religion of the Spirit, the dispensation of life, the minis- 
tration of righteousness, and in virtue of these attributes 
as the abiding perennial religion, as opposed to the 
transient religion of the old covenant. He claims for 
himself fitness for the service of this new order of things, 
1 2 Cor. iii. 6. 



374 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

basing his claim on his ability to appreciate the distinctive 
excellence and glory of the New Testament, an ability 
for which he is indebted to his whole past religious 
experience. And the service which he has in view is 
just the preaching of the gospel; for in the foregoing 
context he repudiates all complicity in the acts of those 
who huckster the word of God, and in the following he 
protests that if his gospel be hid it is hid from them 
that are lost. So, then, it is the word of God that is 
concerned in this New Testament service, it is the 
preaching of the gospel in which the service consists. 

But it may be thought that this eulogy of the New 
Testament, and, by implication, of its ministry, affects 
only the preaching of an apostle, and cannot legitimately 
be extended to an ordinary gospel ministry. This 
inference, however, is contrary to the spirit, I may say 
even to the language, of the passage in question. For it 
is observable that the apostle employs the plural pronoun 
throughout, as if, while asserting his own importance 
against assailants, 1 with express intent to include others, 
like Apollos, Titus, and Timothy, in his eulogy. Then it 
is to be noted that at the end of the chapter the expres- 
sion "we "is replaced by "we all," 2 in which the writer 
certainly has in view more than himself. But indeed no one 
who enters into the drift of the argument throughout can 
possibly imagine that St. Paul is thinking merely of his 
own apostleship when he speaks of the ministry of the 
New Testament. The kind of argument he uses to define 

1 For the bearing of the whole passage on the defence of St. Paul's 
apostolic standing against the Judaists, vide Chap. IV. 

2 2 Cor. iii. 18. 



THE CHURCH 375 

his apostleship is such as to serve a wider purpose, viz., 
to legitimise the ministry of all who, with unveiled face, 
see the glory of Christ and of Christianity. For him the 
ultimate ground of a right to preach is insight into the 
genius of the New Testament religion. That carries 
with it the right of everyone who has the insight. 
Whoever has the open eye and the unveiled face may 
take part in the ministry. u The tools to him that can 
use them " was a principle for St. Paul as well as for 
Napoleon. He that had the open eye was, in his judg- 
ment, not only entitled but bound to take part in the 
New Testament ministry. God made the sun in order 
that it might shine, and He gives the light of the know- 
ledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus to Chris- 
tian men that they in turn may be. lights to the world. 
There is another thing in this great passage which 
clearly shows that, in the writer's view, a teaching or 
preaching ministry was a most congenial and fitting 
feature of the New Testament dispensation. It is the 
remark about Trapp^a-ia, "Seeing then that we have such 
hope, we use great plainness of speech. ' ' 1 The frankness 
with which the apostle is wont to utter himself as a 
preacher he here connects with the hopeful character of 
the faith he preaches, which is a feature naturally rising 
out of all the others previously mentioned. The religion 
of the spirit, of life, and of righteousness cannot but be 
a religion of good hope. But a religion of good hope is 
sure to be a religion of free speech. For it puts men in 
good spirits; it gives them heart to speak; it makes 
them feel that they have good news to tell. Who would 
1 2 Cor. iii. 12. 



376 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

care to be a preaching minister of a religion of condem- 
nation and despair and death ? But how pleasant to be 
the messenger of mercy, the publisher of good tidings ! 
How beautiful are the feet of them that preach a gospel 
of peace ! beautiful because they move so nimbly and 
gracefully, as no feet can move but those of him that 
goes on a glad errand. It may be taken for granted 
that under a religion of good hope great will be the com- 
pany of preachers characterised by irapprio-ia, boldness, 
frankness. The more the better St. Paul would have 
said, provided they be of the right kind, men in sym- 
pathy with the new era of grace and the genius of the 
New Testament; hopeful, outspoken, eloquent, as only 
those can be who are at once sincere and happy. To 
men of another spirit, gloomy, reserved, prudential, he 
would have said, You are not fit for this ministry; you 
are fit only for a ministry like that of Moses, who put a 
veil on his face. You are living not in the new era but 
in the old one, which I for my part am glad to be done 
with. Go and take service under the Levitical system; 
you are of no use in the Christian Church. 

The upshot of what has been said is that evangelism — 
frank, fervent speech about the common faith — may be 
expected as a prominent feature of organised Christianity 
in proportion as the organisation is filled with the spirit 
of St. Paul and of the apostolic age. Whether a sys- 
tematically trained class of professional preachers be 
a legitimate development out of such evangelism is a 
question of grave concern for all the churches in the 
present time. Preaching is a very outstanding feature 
in our Church life, and all the modern Churches have 



THE CHURCH 377 

with more or less decision adopted as their ideal ' ' a 
learned ministry." Is the ideal justified by results ? In 
reply I have to say that my sympathies are very strongly 
with the advocates of a learned ministry. In my view, 
what we have to complain of is not that the Churches 
have adopted this as their ideal, but that the ministry 
turned out of their theological seminaries can only by 
courtesy be described as learned. What we need is not 
less learning, but a great deal more and of the right sort. 
At the same time, it has to be acknowledged that the pro- 
gramme involves dangers. Learning may kill enthusi- 
asm, and transform the prophet into a rabbi. That will 
mean decay of the evangelic spirit, lapse into legalism. 
This is the form in which the legal temper is apt to 
invade churches which magnify the importance of the 
preacher. The bane of other churches is sacramentari- 
anism and priestcraft, under which prophetic nrappnoria 
disappears, and mystery takes its place. The bane to 
be dreaded by churches not sacramentarian in tendency, 
is a rabbinised pulpit, offering the people scholastic 
dogmas or philosophic ideas in place of the gospel. 
Religious teachers ought to know theology, and to be 
deep, earnest thinkers ; but in the concio ad populum 
the prophet should be more prominent than the theolo- 
gian, and the poet than the philosopher. 

One other topic remains to be noticed briefly, the view 
presented in the Pauline Epistles of the Church's relation 
to Christ. In the Christological Epistles the Church is 
conceived as the body of Christ, He being the Head. 
This idea is found also in the controversial letters, more 
especially in 1 Corinthians. It is stated with great dis- 



378 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

tinctness in the words, ' ' But ye are the body of Christ 
and members individually ' ' (iic pepovs) ; 1 well para- 
phrased by Stanley : 4 ; You, the Christian society, as dis- 
tinct from the bodily organisation, of which I have just 
been speaking, you are, collectively speaking, the body 
of Christ, as individually you are His limbs. ' ' The value 
of this idea is the use made of it in assigning a rationale 
for the diversity of gifts in the Church. In order to a 
complete Church, such is the apostle's thought, there 
must be a great variety of gifts, just as there is a great 
variety of members in the human body. It would not be 
well if all had the same gifts, any more than if the whole 
body were an eye or an ear. There must be differentia- 
tion of function : Apostles, prophets, teachers, gifts of 
healing, talent for administration, the power of speaking 
with tongues. The diversity need not create disorder. 
It finds its unity in Christ. "There are diversities of 
services, and the same Lord. " 2 A splendid ideal, if only 
it were wisely and conscientiously worked out. But 
alas, to carry out the programme, there is wanted a spirit 
of self-abnegation and magnanimity such as animated 
the apostle Paul. We are so apt to imagine that our 
function is the only important or even legitimate one, 
and to regard men of other gifts as aliens and rebels. It 
is so hard to realise our own limits, and to see in our 
brethren the complement of our own defects ; and to 
grasp the thought that it takes all Christians together, 
with all their diverse talents and graces, to shadow 
forth, even imperfectly, the fulness of wisdom and 
goodness that is in Christ. 

1 Cor. xii. 27. 2 Ibid. xii. 5. 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE LAST THINGS 

On no subject, perhaps, was St. Paul, in his way of 
thinking, more a man of his time than on that of 
eschatology. And on no subject is it more difficult for 
one influenced by the modern spirit to sympathise with, 
or even to understand, the apostle. For modern modes 
of thought in this connection are very diverse from those 
of the Jews in the apostolic age. Not only our secular 
but even our religious interest centres largely in the 
present; theirs looked to the future. We desire to 
possess the summum bonum, salvation, life as it ought to 
be, here and now ; for them it was something that was 
coming in the end of the days. And if we still believe 
in a final consummation, it is for us indefinitely remote, 
a goal so distant that we can leave it practically out of 
account, and conceive of the present order of things as 
going on, if not quite for ever, at least for a long series 
of ages. For the Jew, for St. Paul, the end was nigh, 
might come any day ; probably would come within his 
own lifetime. The last time, indeed, had already come; 
Christ Himself, even at His first coming, was an eschato- 
logical phenomenon, and His second advent could not be 
separated from His first by much more than a generation. 

379 



380 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

All this now seems so strange that the subject of the 
eschatology of the New Testament in general, and of 
St. Paul in particular, is apt to appear the reverse of 
inviting, a theme to be passed over in respectful silence. 
But, in connection with an attempt to expound the 
Pauline system of thought, such a procedure is in- 
admissible. The prominence of the eschatological point 
of view in the Pauline letters forbids evasion of the topic, 
simply because it may happen to be difficult or distaste- 
ful. For eschatology in these letters does not mean 
merely the discussion of some curious, obscure, and more 
or less unimportant questions respecting the end of this 
world and the incoming of the next. It covers the 
whole ground of Christian hope. Salvation itself is 
eschatologically conceived. We had occasion to observe 
this fact in connection with the earliest of the Pauline 
Epistles, in which Christians are described as waiting for 
Christ from heaven ; 1 but the remark applies more or 
less to all the Epistles. 2 

Those who wait for a good greatly desired are naturally 
impatient of delay. Hence the second advent, in the 
apostolic age, was expected very soon. The apostle 
Paul expected it in his lifetime. To us now this may 
appear surprising, not so much on account of the com- 
plete ignorance as to the future course of things the 
explanation implied, as by reason of the indifference it 
seemed to show to the working out of the end for which 
Jesus Christ came into the world. How, we are inclined 
to ask, could a man who, like St. Paul, regarded the 

1 1 Thess. i. 10. 

2 Vide on this Kabisch, Die Eschatologie des Paalus, pp. 12-70. 



THE LAST THINGS 381 

gospel as good news for the whole world, desire the 
speedy termination of the present order of things ? 
Why not rather long and pray for ample time wherein 
to carry on missionary operations ? In cherishing a 
contrary wish, was he not preferring personal interests 
to the great public interest of the kingdom of God? 
Surely it was desirable that all men should hear the 
good tidings ! That end was not accomplished by 
preaching the gospel in a few of the principal centres of 
population in Asia and Europe. True, the faith might 
spread from town to country, and the evangelisation of 
Corinth might be regarded as in germ the Christianisa- 
tion of Greece. But that meant a process of gradual 
growth demanding time. And if time was not to be 
allowed for that process, was it really worth while con- 
tending so zealously for the cause of Gentile Chris- 
tianity ? Why not let the Judaists have their way if the 
end was to be so soon ? If the programme, a gospel of 
grace unfettered by legalism for the whole human race, 
was worth fighting for, surely its champion ought in 
consistency to wish for time to work it thoroughly, out ! 
The Jewish day of grace had lasted for millenniums ; 
was the pittance of a single generation all that was to be 
thrown to the Gentile dogs ? To us it certainly seems 
as if the bias of St. Paul, as the advocate of Christian 
universalism, ought to have been decidedly in favour of 
a lengthened Christian era, and an indefinitely delayed 
Trapovala ; unless by the latter he meant Christ coming 
not to judge the world, but to resume the gracious work 
He had carried on in Palestine, adopting the larger 
world of heathenism as His sphere, and to quicken by 



382 ST. PAUL'S CONCEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 

His presence trie energies of His servants, so that the 
process of converting the nations might go on at a ten- 
fold speed. 

A trace of the conception of a protracted Christian 
era may be discovered in the words of Ephesians iii. 21 : 
" To Him be glory in the Church, and in Christ Jesus, 
unto all the generations of the age of the ages." But 
for critics this fact might simply be an additional 
argument against the authenticity of the Epistle. Turn- 
ing to the Epistles more certainly Pauline we find in two 
of them indications of a change of view to some extent 
in reference to the second coming. In Philippians the 
apostle represents himself as in a strait between two 
alternatives, one being to live on in this present world, 
in spite of all discomfort, for the benefit of fellow- 
Christians, the other to die (avaXvaai) and to be with 
Christ. 1 We see here the apostle's generous heart 
leaning to the side of postponement of the end. But 
the event to be postponed is not the second coming of 
Christ, but his own departure from this life. And the 
change in his mind does not consist in thinking that the 
advent will not happen so soon as he had once expected, 
but rather in thinking that death will overtake himself 
before the great event arrives. He had hoped that Jesus 
would come during his lifetime. He cherishes that hope 
no longer, because the prosj)ect before him is that his 
life will be cut short by an unfavourable judicial sentence. 
In 2 Corinthians v., the same mood prevails, possibly for 
a different reason. " We know," writes the apostle, "that 
if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we 
1 Phil. i. 23. 



THE LAST THINGS 

have a building from God, a house not made with hands, 
eternal in the heavens." : This is in a different key 
from those words in the First Epistle to the same Church : 
" Behold, I tell you a mystery : we shall not all sleep, 
but we shall all be changed." 2 In the earlier Epistle, 
written not long before, the apostle seems to hope to be 
alive when the Lord comes ; in the later, he writes like a 
man who expects to die, and who comforts himself by 
thoughts of the felicity awaiting him beyond the grave. 
Whence this altered mood within so brief an interval ? 
It may be due to failure of the physical powers, through 
sickness and hard conditions of existence, premonitory of 
dissolution at no distant date. The preceding chapter 
is full of hints at such a breaking down. The phrases 
" earthen vessels " (iv. 7), " the outward man wasting " 
(iv. 16), " the lightness of our present affliction " (iv. 17), 
are significant, implying bodily affliction by no means 
light, but made light by the buoyant spirit of the writer, 
and by the hope of the glory which awaits him when 
life's tragic drama is ended. 

This change in the apostle's personal expectation was 
likely to have one consequence. It might lead him to 
reflect more than he had previously done on the state of 
the dead, intermediate between the hour of death and the 
resurrection. As long as the second advent was expected 
within his lifetime, the intermediate state would not be 
a pressing question for him, and as far as appears he 
does not seem to have thought much about it. The 
phrase he uses in 1 Thessalonians to denote the dead is 
" those who sleep," 3 a vague expression conveying no 
1 2 Cor. v. 1. 2 Ibid. xv. 51. 3 1 Thess. iv. 13, 14. 



384 st. 

definite idea, or suggesting an idea analogous to that 
entertained by the ancient Hebrews, according to which 
the life of the departed was a shadowy, unreal thing, 
compared with the life of those living on earth. In 
2 Corinthians this vague phrase is replaced by much 
more definite language. The apostle expects at death 
to exchange the frail tabernacle of his mortal body for a 
permanent dwelling-place in heaven, and by this house 
from heaven he seems to mean a body not liable to cor- 
ruption. It is to be put on as a garment (^eirevhvaaadai) 
fitting close to the soul. The word " naked " QyvixvoV) 
in ver. 3 points in the same direction. The nakedness 
shrunk from is that of a disembodied spirit. The apostle 
does not wish to enter the world beyond as a bodiless 
ghost — that seems to his imagination a cold, cheerless 
prospect ; he simply desires to exchange the body that 
is mortal for a body that is endowed with the power of 
an endless life. 

If this be the apostle's meaning, the question arises : 
How is this idea of a body in heaven to be put on at 
death to be reconciled with the doctrine of the resurrec- 
tion ? To what end a resurrection body, if there is a 
body awaiting the deceased to be put on immediately 
after the corruptible one is put off? Or if the resurrec- 
tion is to be held fast, is this body which the soul puts 
on as a new garment at death to be viewed as a 
temporary body, not an oUrjTtfpcov, or house after all, 
but a tabernacle also, like the mortal body, only per- 
chance of finer mould ? This curious notion of a 
temporary body, to be worn in the intermediate state, 
has actually been resorted to by some interpreters, as a 



THE LAST THINGS 385 

hypothesis wherewith to reconcile St. Paul's various 
statements about the future life. But it is a very 
questionable way of getting out of a difficulty. It is 
better to hold that the apostle had no clear light on the 
subject of the intermediate state, no dogma to teach, but 
was simply groping his way like the rest of us, and that 
what we are to find in 2 Corinthians v. is not the expres- 
sion of a definite opinion, far less the revelation of a truth 
to be received as an item in the creed as to the life beyond, 
but the utterance of a wish or hope. One cannot but 
note the contrast between the confident language of the 
first two verses and the hesitating tone of the next two. 
" We know," says the apostle in ver. 1 ; "if being clothed 
we shall not be found naked," " we wish not to be un- 
clothed, but clothed upon," are the phrases he employs 
in vers. 3 and 4. It would seem as if in the first 
sentence of the chapter the writer's mind contemplated 
the future state as a whole, without distinction between 
the pre-resurrection and the post-resurrection states, and 
that then the intermediate state occurring to his mind 
led to a change of tone. 

Passing from this obscure topic to the more important 
subject of the resurrection, several grave questions present 
themselves for consideration, such as these, Whom does 
the resurrection concern ? What is the nature of the 
resurrection life and of the resurrection body, and what 
the relation between the second advent, the resurrection, 
and the final consummation of the end ? 

1. As to the first of these questions, we are accustomed 
to take for granted that in the New Testament generally, 
and in the Epistles of St. Paul in particular, the resur- 
2 c 



386 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

rection of course concerns all men. To one whose mind 
is preoccupied with the belief in a general resurrection, 
both of the just and the unjust, of believers and unbe- 
lievers alike, it seems easy to find traces of the doctrine 
in 1 Corinthians xv. The words " as in Adam all die, even 
so in Christ shall all be made alive "* seem to express it 
plainly, and the end spoken of in ver. 24 is naturally 
taken to mean the end of the resurrection process, accom- 
plished in three stages : Christ the first-fruits, then those 
who belong to Christ rising at His second coming, then 
finally, after an interval, the resurrection of all the rest 
of the dead. But an imposing array of interpreters dis- 
pute this view of the apostle's meaning, restricting the 
" all " who are to be made alive in Christ to those who 
before death were in living fellowship with Him, and see- 
ing in the " end " not a reference to the concluding stage 
of the resurrection, but rather to the final stage of Christ's 
mediatorial work, when He shall deliver up His kingdom 
to the Father. It is conceivable, of course, that the 
apostle might have nothing to say on the subject of the 
general resurrection in a particular passage, while yet 
believing in it, and even teaching it in other parts of 
his writings. But there are those who would have us 
believe that St. Paul knew nothing of a general resurrec- 
tion, or of a life beyond for the ungodly and the un- 
believing, and that his programme for the future was — 
life perpetual for all who believe in Jesus, for all the rest 
of mankind total extinction of being after death. It is 
even contended that the precise object of the Christian 
hope, according to St. Paul, was continuance of life, in 

1 1 Cor. xv. 22. 



THE LAST THINGS 387 

the literal physical sense, after death, and the privilege 
of the Christian as compared with other men, that in his 
case this hope will be realised. 1 

To those accustomed to other ways of thinking, these 
views are startling and disconcerting ; and, apart alto- 
gether from the discomfort connected with the unset- 
tling of preconceived opinions, it is disappointing to 
meet with so much diversity of view as to the interpre- 
tation of texts whose meaning had previously appeared 
so plain. But it is idle to indulge in querulous reflec- 
tions. The wise course is to adjust ourselves to the 
situation, and to recognise once for all that the eschato- 
logical teaching of St. Paul is neither so simple nor so 
plain as we had imagined, and that the whole subject 
demands careful reconsideration. The result of a new 
study may, not improbably, be to convict such a discus- 
sion as that of Kabisch of the " vigour and rigour " 
characteristic of so many German theories. But it were 
well that that should appear as the conclusion of a 
serious inquiry, rather than be assumed at the outset as 
an excuse for neglecting further examination. Mean- 
time, it is satisfactory to find there is a large measure 
of agreement in regard to one fundamental point, viz., 
that St. Paul did earnestly believe and teach a resur- 
rection of Christians to eternal life. 

2. And yet there are those who seem not disinclined 
to call even this in question, or at least to rob the fact 
of abiding value for the Christian faith, by insisting on 
the ethical aspect of resurrection as opposed to the eschato- 
logical. The basis of this view is the manner in which 
1 So Kabisch, in Eschatologie des Paulus. 



388 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

St. Paul seems in various places to blend together the 
two aspects : the resurrection now experienced in the new 
life in the Spirit with the resurrection of the dead. Two 
instances of this may be cited. In Romans viii. 11 we 
read : " If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from 
the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the 
dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit 
that dwelleth in you " ; and in 2 Corinthians v. 5 : 
" Now He that hath wrought us for this very thing is 
God " (the thing referred to is the investiture with the 
•heavenly body), "who also hath given unto us the earnest 
of the Spirit." In these texts the apostle seems to 
found on the spiritual resurrection of the soul to 
a new divine life, an argument in favour of a future 
physical resurrection to eternal life. It is a line of 
argument with which we are perfectly familiar, and 
of which all Christians feel the force in proportion 
to the vigour of their own spiritual experience. But 
writers such as Pfleiderer and the late Mr. Matthew 
Arnold, acting as the mouthpieces of the modern spirit, 
find in these and kindred texts much more than this, 
even a new ethical way of thinking really incompatible 
with the old Jewish eschatological theory of the universe ; 
co-existing indeed in St. Paul's mind with the latter, but 
destined eventually to supersede it. " The three essential 
terms of Pauline theology are not," writes Mr. Arnold, in 
Paul and Protestantism, " calling, justification, sanctifica- 
tion. They are rather dying with Christ, resurrection 
from the dead, growing into Christ. The order in which 
these terms are placed indicates the true Pauline sense of 
the expression, ' resurrection from the dead.' In St. Paul's 



THE LAST THINGS 389 

ideas the" expression has no essential connection with 
physical death. It is true popular theology connects it 
with this almost exclusively, and regards any other use of 
it as purely figurative and secondary. . . . But whoever 
has carefully followed St. Paul's line of thought, as we 
have endeavoured to trace it, will see that in his mature 
theology, as the Epistle to the Romans exhibits it, it can- 
not be this physical and miraculous aspect of the resurrec- 
tion which holds the first place in his mind, for under 
this aspect the resurrection does not fit in with the ideas 
he is developing. ' ' 1 Mr. Arnold does not mean to deny 
that St. Paul held the doctrine of a physical resurrec- 
tion and a future life. He admits that if the apostle 
had been asked at any time of his life whether he held 
that doctrine, he would have replied with entire con- 
viction that he did. Nevertheless he thinks that that 
Jewish doctrine was only an outer skin which the new 
ethical system of thought was sooner or later to slough 
off. 

" Below the surface stream, shallow and light, 
Of what we say we feel, — below the stream, 
As light, of what we think we feel — there flows, 
With noiseless current, strong, obscure, and deep, 
The central stream of what we feel indeed." 

The question thus raised is a momentous one, the full 
drift of which it is important to understand. It is noth- 
ing less than whether the eschatological point of view in 
general be really compatible with the ethical. If the 
question be decided in the negative, then all the escha- 
tological ideas — resurrection, judgment, a future life, 

1 p. 260. 



390 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

with its alternative states — must be given up, or resolved 
into ethical equivalents; the resurrection into the new 
life in the Spirit, the final judgment into the incessant 
action of the moral order of the world, and the Eternal 
beyond into the Eternal here which underlies the phe- 
nomenal life of men. On this theory the eschatological 
categories will have to be regarded as products of the 
religious imagination, just as the blue sky is the illusory 
product of our visual organs. The judgment will become 
the perpetually active moral order of the world projected 
forward in time by conscience, as the blue sky is the 
environing atmosphere projected by the eye to an in- 
definite distance in space. Heaven and hell will be pro- 
jections into the future of the rewards and punishments 
inseparable from right and wrong action falling within 
present human experience, and brought about by the 
natural operation of the law of cause and effect. 

To these modern conceptions, we may concede cogency 
so far as to admit that eschatological ideas require to 
undergo a process of purification, in order to bring them 
into harmony with ethical views of human life and des- 
tiny. But it is an unfounded assertion that eschatolog- 
ical ideas in any form are incompatible with the ethical 
view-point, to such an extent, e.g., as to involve the denial 
of the future life altogether, which is by far the most 
important interest at stake. The hope of a life beyond, 
in which the ideal to which the good devoted their lives 
here shall be realised, seems to be a natural element in 
the creed of all theists. Nor does it appear incapable of 
being reconciled Avith the doctrine of evolution in the 
moral world, as even Bishop Butler seems to have dimly 



THE LAST THINGS 391 

perceived, for he endeavoured to remove from the 
future state the aspect of arbitrariness, and to make it 
the natural outcome of the present life, in accordance 
with the analogy of seedtime and harvest. 

How time brings its revenges! Some years ago Mr. 
Arnold told us that St. Paul, without being aware of it, 
substituted an ethical for a physical resurrection, and an 
eternal life in the spirit here for an everlasting life here- 
after. Now a German theologian tells us that St. Paul 
knows nothing of a figurative 4 4 life ' ' ethical in quality, 
but only of a physical life ; that prolongation of physical 
life after death is the object of his hope; that even the 
Spirit, in his system of thought, is physical and finely 
material, and communicates itself by physical means, 
by baptism and even by generation through a Christian 
parent; that the germ of the resurrection body is a 
spiritual, yet physical body, existing now within the 
dead carcase of the old body of sin; and that the 
essence of the resurrection will consist in the manifes- 
tation of this spiritual body by the sloughing off of its 
gross carnal envelope. 1 Such are the two extremes. 
Surely the truth lies somewhere between! 

3. In comparison with the reality of the life hereafter, 
the nature of the resurrection body and of its relation to 
the mortal body laid in the grave, is a topic of subordi- 
nate interest, but a few sentences on it may not be out 
of place. The apostle boldly states that flesh and blood 
cannot inherit the kingdom of God. 2 From this it may 
be inferred that the resurrection body must differ in 

1 Kabisch, Eschatologie des Paulus, Zweiter Absclmitt, sees. 1 and 5. 

2 1 Cor. xv. 50. 



392 st. Paul's conception of Christianity 

nature from that worn in this present life. If we in- 
quire as to the positive character of that body, the only 
suggestion we can gather from the apostle's statements 
is that it will be composed of a light-like substance, so 
that it will shine like the heavenly bodies; though it is 
not perfectly certain that the allusion to the latter in 
1 Corinthians xv. 40, 41, is meant to serve any purpose 
beyond illustrating the difference between the natural 
body and the spiritual body. Yet it would not be sur- 
prising if St. Paul conceived of the spiritual body as a 
luminous substance, for it seems to have been a current 
opinion among the Jews that in the life to come the 
righteous would have shining bodies. 1 Too much stress, 
however, must not be laid on this, especially in view 
of the fact that more than one way of thinking seems 
to have prevailed in rabbinical circles. According to 
Weber there was a spiritualistic conception of life in the 
future world, as a life lacking all the characteristics of the 
present life — eating, drinking, generation, trade; and 
consisting in an eternal enjoyment of the glory of the 
Shekinah; and there was also a materialistic conception, 
according to which eating and generation would continue, 
only the food would be exceptionally good, and the 
children all righteous. 2 It is difficult to decide how far 
such statements are to be taken seriously. The Jewish 
mind was realistic and sensuous in its way of thinking. 
Spirit was conceived of grossly, and invested with some 
of the properties of matter. It was a kind of thin 
matter, an ether endowed with the properties of per- 

1 Vide Langen, Judenthum in Pdldstina zur Zeit Christi, p. 507. 

2 Weber, Die Lehren des Talmud, p. 383. 



THE LAST THINGS 393 

manence, luminousness, and power to penetrate all things. 
So at least inquirers into these obscure regions tell us. 1 
If these views are to be taken literally, and if St. Paul is 
to be regarded as sharing them, the word " body, ' ' in the 
expression "a spiritual body," is superfluous. A spirit 
is a body, and a spiritual body is just a spirit. 

What connection can a body of this kind have with 
the body which dies and is buried in the tomb ? None 
at all, replies such a writer as Holsten, who goes the 
length of maintaining that even in the case of Christ, the 
post-resurrection body stood in no relation to the crucified 
body, in the view of St. Paul; in other words, that the 
apostle did not think of the crucified body as rising again. 
This hypothesis hangs together with the dualistic inter- 
pretation of the Pauline doctrine of the flesh, according 
to which the flesh is radically sinful, Christ's flesh not 
excepted, and the atonement really consisted in the 
judicial punishment of sin in Christ's body which, as a 
criminal, was not worthy of the honour of being raised 
again. On this view the body in which Christ appeared 
to St. Paul on the way to Damascus must have been an 
entirely new creation. The construction thus put on the 
resurrection of Jesus, and on the resurrection generally, 
is not the one which an unbiassed consideration of the 
texts naturally suggests. The very words iyelpco and 
avdaraai^ imply the contrary view, suggesting the idea 
of the resurrection body springing out of the mortal body, 
as grain springs out of the seed sown in the ground. 
The analogy must not be pressed too far, but it conveys 
this hint at least, that the new will be related to the old 
1 Vide Kabisch, Die Eschatologie des Paulus, pp. 188-228. 



394 st. paul's conception op Christianity 

so as to insure identity of form if not of substance, as 
the grain on the stalk is the same in kind, though not 
numerically the same, or composed of the same particles, 
as the seed out of which it springs. 

4. Our last question is: Is there any trace of chiliasm 
in the Pauline eschatology, any recognition of a period of 
time intervening between the second coming and the end 
when Christ shall resign the kingdom. An affirmative 
answer may plausibly be justified by a particular mode of 
interpreting 1 Corinthians xv. 22-28. Thus, there are 
three stages in the resurrection process : first Christ, then 
Christians, then the rest of mankind. With the third 
final stage coincides the ' ' end. ' ' But between the second 
and third stages there is an appreciable interval. This 
is implied in the term rdy/^a involving the notion of 
succession, and also in the words airapx^ eW^ra, elra, 
which it is natural to regard as indicative each of a 
distinct epoch. We know that the two first stages are 
separated by a considerable interval, and it may be in- 
ferred that the second and third are likewise conceived of 
as divided by a long space of time. Another consider- 
ation in favour of this view is that, on the contrary 
hypothesis, Christ's reign over His kingdom in glory 
would be reduced to a vanishing-point. The argument 
has some show of reason, but the subject is obscure, and 
a modest interpreter must step cautiously and timidly as 
one carrying but a glimmering torchlight to show him 
the way. Perhaps the apostle's thoughts were as repre- 
sented, perhaps not; perhaps, like the prophets, he had 
himself but a dim, vague, shadowy conception of the 
future, very different from the future that is to be. The 



THE LAST THINGS 395 

chapter on the resurrection in 1 Corinthians xv., is a 
sublime one, full of great thoughts and inspiring hopes. 
But beyond one or two leading statements, such as that 
affirming the certainty of the future life, I should be slow 
to summarise its contents in definite theological formulae. 
I had rather read this chapter as a Christian man seeking 
religious edification and moral inspiration, than as a 
theologian in quest of positive dogmatic teaching. The 
spirit of the whole is life-giving, but the letter is 
Sv(T€p/j,7]vevTov, and while some interpreters feel able on 
the basis of it to tell us all about the millennium, and 
others find therein a universal aTroKaTaaTacns, when God 
shall be all in all, and to every human spirit, I prefer 
to confess my ignorance and remain silent. 



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE 



ON 



THE TEACHING OF ST. PAUL COMPARED WITH THE TEACHING 
OF OUR LORD IN THE SYNOPTICAL GOSPELS. 



In the course of our study of St. Paul's conception of 
Christianity we have taken occasion, as opportunity pre- 
sented itself, to compare the views of the apostle with 
the teaching of Christ as it is set forth in the first three 
Gospels. The comparison touches mainly four topics : 
the idea of righteousness 1 ; the significance of Christ's 
death 2 ; the doctrine of Sonship 3 ; and the law of growth 
in the Christian life. 4 We found that St. Paul's concep- 
tion of the righteousness of God does not occur in the 
Gospels. The righteousness of God spoken of there is 
not, as in the Pauline Epistles, a righteousness God-given, 
but a righteousness of which God is the centre. 5 The 
nearest equivalent to St. Paul's righteousness of God in 
the teaching of our Lord is, as has been pointed out, the 
free pardon of sin, which occupied a prominent place in 
Christ's gospel. In reference to the death of Christ, we 

i Vide Chap. VII. 2 V ide Chap . yill. 3 V ide C hap. X. 

4 Vide Chap. XVIII. 

5 Vide The Kingdom of God, chap. ix. 

397 



S98 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

had occasion to remark that the ethical view of that 
event set forth in the first lesson on the doctrine of the 
cross J is overlooked by St. Panl, his interest being con- 
centrated on the religious or theological aspect. On the 
subject of Sonship, we found that in representing sonship 
as constituted by adoption, the apostle seems to give it 
an aspect of artificiality or unreality, contrasting unfav- 
ourably with the sonship presented, to view in the Gospels, 
which rests on an essential identity between the nature 
of God and the nature of man. In so far as this contrast 
is real, it points to a deeper difference in the way of 
conceiving God. But it was pointed out that there is 
reason to believe that the theology of the schools has not 
in this connection done full justice to the thought of St. 
Paul. Finally, on the subject of gradual sanctification 
we were forced to the conclusion that the Pauline 
Epistles contain nothing parallel to the firm grasp and 
felicitous statement of the great law of growth in the 
kingdom of God, exhibited in the parable of the blade, 
the green ear, and the ripe corn. 

A somewhat elaborate study on the contrast between 
the two types of doctrine has recently appeared from the 
pen oi Wendt, 2 the well-known author of the work, Die 
Lehre Jesu, of which a portion has been translated into 
English. 3 Among the points of comparison are these : 
the essence of the Messianic salvation, the righteousness 
of the saved man, the condition of the natural man, the 



1 Vide The Kingdom of God, chap. x. 

2 Die Lehre des Paulus vcrylichen mit der Lehre Jesu, in Zeitschrift 
filr Theologie und Kirche, 1894, pp. 1-78. 

3 Wendt, The Teaching of Jesus, 2 vols, by Messrs. T. & T. Clark. 



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE 399 

Person of the Messiah, the significance of Christ as the 
Mediator of salvation, and the conditions of participa- 
tion in salvation. 

1. In reference to the first topic, the author finds a 
general agreement between the Master and the apostle, 
in so far as both taught that the Messianic salvation 
came with Jesus, and consisted not in the fulfilment of 
Old Testament hopes of an earthly kingdom, but in a 
gracious relation of sonship to God, begun here and 
perfected hereafter. The point of difference, according 
to Wendt, is that in the teaching of Jesus there is no 
developed doctrine as to the possession by believers of 
the Holy Spirit, such as we find in the Pauline letters. 

2. On the second topic, the righteousness of the 
saved man, Wendt finds in both types of doctrine, as a 
common element, recognition of the truth that only the 
ethical has real value in God's sight, and that ritual 
possesses no intrinsic importance. The difference lies 
in the ground on which this truth is made to rest. In 
the teaching of Christ it. is the purely ethical and spir- 
itual nature of God, and the certainty thence flowing 
that the only acceptable righteousness is. that which is 
kindred to God's own moral nature. In the teaching of 
St. Paul the worthlessness of ritual is a deduction from 
the redeeming work of Christ. Christ, by being made 
under law, has redeemed us from subjection to law. 
But this redemption covers the whole law, as law, 
without distinction between the ethical and the ritual. 
Insight into the essential difference between the two is 
not so markedly characteristic of the apostle. 

3. In connection with the third topic, the condition 



400 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

of the natural man, Wendt finds a considerable differ- 
ence between the two types of doctrine. Christ's view 
of average human nature is, he thinks, less sombre than 
that of St. Paul. The natural man, as he appears in the 
Gospels, is not doomed by the flesh to sin. Then the 
Gospels contain no such speculations as to the malign 
influence of Adam's transgression on the character and 
destinies of the race, as we find in Romans v. 12-21. 

4. As to the person of the Messiah, a common ele- 
ment in the two types of doctrine is the idea that the 
Messiahship of Jesus rested exclusively on His filial rela- 
tion to God. Neither Christ nor Paul, according to 
Wendt, attached any real importance to the Davidic 
descent. The point of contrast under this head is found 
in the idea of pre-existence, propounded by the apostle, 
but not, according to our author, to be found in the 
authentic utterances of Jesus. 

5. The point at which the greatest difference between 
the two types of doctrine reveals itself is the significance 
of Christ as the Mediat'or of salvation. There is first, 
according to our author, the great general contrast, that 
whereas Christ Himself gave special, not to say exclusive, 
prominence to His revealing, or prophetic, or teaching 
function, the apostle left that very much in the back- 
ground, and made all turn on the redemptive significance 
of Christ's death. Then there is the specific contrast 
between the manner in which that death is viewed in 
the two types. The apostle, according to Wendt, assigned 
to Christ's death the significance of a vicarious penal 
suffering, on the part of the innocent One on behalf of the 
guilty. He finds no such doctrine in the words of our 



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE 401 

Lord, not even in the saying concerning the ransom in 
Mark x. 45, nor in the words spoken at the institution 
of the Supper. He holds that Jesus taught the doctrine 
of a free forgiveness to all penitent sinners unmediated 
by any atonement, and that this doctrine set forth in the 
parable of the prodigal, and elsewhere, He did not cancel 
or limit towards the end of His life. The words spoken 
at the institution of the Supper offer no justification for 
such a supposition. " It is, " he says, " only a prejudice 
arising out of our dogmatic tradition, that the thought of 
the saving significance of Christ's death for His followers 
must include or presuppose the idea of a vicarious 
expiation. I believe that Jesus, in the words of institu- 
tion, had no such thought in His mind, although He did 
mean to express the other idea of a saving significance 
attaching to His death. It was a conception naturally 
arising out of His certainty as to the overwhelming love 
and grace of God, that God would reward the loyal 
obedience of His Son with rich blessings, affecting not 
Himself only, but also those who belong to Him, even as, 
in the Old Testament, we find God promising to reward 
the truth of those who keep His covenant with benefits 
to thousands (Exodus xx. 6). But this certainty as to 
the greatness of divine grace did not lead Jesus to 
imagine that, in order to be able to forgive penitent 
sinners, God demanded the vicarious sufferings of His 
obedient Son. As Jesus did not regard earthly suffering 
in general simply as evil, and as penalty of sin, it was by 
no means a self-evident truth to Him that His innocent 
suffering must have a penal relation to the sin of other 
men. He did not regard His death as vicarious penal 
2 D 



402 st. paul's conception of Christianity 

suffering, but only as a proof of obedience, which God in 
His grace would not fail to reward. ' ' 1 

The question here raised is very important. And 
with regard to the answer given to it by Wendt, who 
holds that Christ and Paul here offer two entirely dif- 
ferent gospels, it may be frankly admitted that the two 
types of doctrine are certainly not coincident at this 
point. There is, e.g., a difference as to the view to be 
taken of suffering. For the apostle it is an axiom 
that all suffering is on account of sin. And, as we have 
elsewhere pointed out, this axiom raises a question to 
which the Pauline literature offers no answer. What 
about the sufferings of the righteous, the prophets, for 
example ? Did they suffer for their own sins ? Then they 
must have been exceptionally great sinners, as Job's 
friends said he was. Or did they suffer for the sins of 
others redemptively ? If neither view is adopted, what 
other alternative is there which goes to the root of the 
matter ? In Christ's teaching the penal meaning of suffer- 
ing is not accentuated. He spoke not merely of a suffering 
for sin, whether personal or relative, but also and very 
emphatically of a suffering for righteousness, and He 
undoubtedly looked on His own suffering as belonging to 
the latter category. But He also recognised that the 
sufferings of the righteous might bring benefit to the 
unrighteous. This is admitted in the passage above 
quoted. Even in Wendt' s own statement, as there given, 
there is room for a theory of redemptive value attaching 
to Christ's death. God, it is admitted, gives blessings 
to men for Christ's sake. This general truth is of more 
1 Zeitschrift fur Theologie und Kirche, 1894, pp. 55, 56. 



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE 403 

importance than any special theological formulation of it. 
It may be possible to formulate the fundamental truth 
in this matter better than theologians have formulated it, 
or even to improve on St. Paul's statement. But the 
main point to notice is, that there is a fact or truth to 
be formulated — that God confers blessings spiritual 
and temporal on some men for the sake of other men. 
This thought is contained in the teaching of our Lord, 
as well as in the letters of St. Paul. And in view of 
this fact it cannot be truly affirmed that the doctrine of 
Jesus was auto-soteric, while that of St. Paul was hetero- 
soteric. 1 Self -salvation, salvation by another — the dif- 
ference between the Master and the apostle, is not so 
great as that. Both teach essentially the same doc- 
trine, that God for Christ's sake blesses the world. 

How this doctrine is to be adjusted to the natural 
order of the universe is a problem requiring more con- 
sideration than it has yet received. How can ten right- 
eous men save Sodom ? What does such a supposition 
mean, translated into terms of natural law ? How do 
prayers count, how pains, sorrows, tears, crucifixions ? 
Theology teaches that God has a regard to these things, 
and because of them imputes, and does, good to the un- 
thankful and the evil. What is the equivalent of this 
divine procedure, in the world of which science takes 
cognisance ? I do not know, but I believe that the 
sacrificial lives of the saintly were eternally in God's 
view, that they are the things of value in His sight; 

1 Vide Macintosh, The Natural History of the Christian Beligion 
(1894), where the difference between Jesus and Paul is thus put. 
Vide especially chap. xv. 



404 ST. PAUL'S CONCEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 

that the world exists for them and is preserved by 
them. 

6. On the last topic, little needs to be said. Accord- 
ing to Wendt, our Lord and the apostle were at one in 
attaching great importance to faith as a condition of 
participation in salvation. But they differed in this, 
that while Jesus insisted also on repentance as a joint 
condition, St. Paul gave prominence to faith only. 
But, on close inspection, it will be found that in the 
teaching of our Lord, not less than in that of St. Paul, 
faith is the great watchword. Difference at this point 
is on the surface only. 1 

1 Vide The Kingdom of God, chap. iii. 



THE END 



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